Grace for My Home | Christian Women, Growing in Faith, Spirit-Led, Hearing from God, Sowing Truth

Don't Give Up! God's Not Finished Yet

• Audrey McCracken | Mom Encourager • Season 2 • Episode 74

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Mentioned in today's episode: More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell


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Audrey :

Hello friends, welcome back to Grace for my home. I am so glad to report that we are all well. Nobody is sick any longer. We were struggling with some sickness last week. After I recorded that podcast last week and told you about my son David being sick, later that night I became sick. So we had a very interesting week. You know how it is when mama is sick. Everything comes to a grinding halt when mama is sick, but right now everyone is well. Everybody is back at school.

Audrey :

Yesterday Kayla and I my youngest son Kayla and I we worked at our church coffee shop. Today we are home doing homeschool together, a homeschool hem. He is my last homeschool student. His two older brothers have gone to high school at public school. But I really enjoy teaching Kayla at home and I learned so much I learned just as much or more than he does, I think, and it has helped that some of these books that I've read with him I've read with his brothers Because it kind of ingrains it in your mind. You know, after the third time of reading it things start clicking and you see new things.

Audrey :

And today we were reading a really good book. I can't I cannot recommend it enough. It's called More Than a Carpenter. It's by Josh McDowell and it's a short little book. It's a very, very simple to read book about how we, as Christians, can have faith and we can have confidence in the story of Christ, in the story of his life, of his death, of his resurrection, and it goes into a lot of the arguments that atheists use to deny Christ, to say that he was a fable or a fairy tale and it. You know it's not a text. It doesn't read like a textbook. It reads like just a very good story about arguing about defending our faith and why we can have confidence in the things that we believe, not just on a heart level but on a mind level. The Lord said that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength. And so we can love him and trust him, even in our minds, and our minds can stretch and grow as we learn more and more about him and what he's done for us. You know we can give him glory and all things. I'm just thankful that for that time today with Caleb as we read through there, because I saw lights going on with him. He was asking some really good questions and I didn't know all the answers. But you know, we, we, we talked through some very important, very good things with that book, so it inspires a lot of good conversations. If you're looking for something simple to read with your children, I can't, I can't recommend that book enough. It's called More Than a Carpenter, by Joshua McDowell, and I will put the link in the show notes in case you want to go check that out.

Audrey :

Well, today I just want to encourage you and your walk with the Lord, which is the whole point of my podcast. But today in particular, I just want to talk to you. I want to talk to the mama who just feels like quitting. Because I have been in your shoes. There are so many, there have been so many seasons when I've just felt like, what's the use? I'm wore out, I'm tired. Nobody appreciates me, nobody would even notice if I just silently quit, quit, trying, quit, believing, quit, hoping for better.

Audrey :

But I want to tell you today that what you do matters and I know today it feels like it doesn't. I know there can be days when it just feels like you know I'm, I'm wasting my time, I'm wasting my talents, I'm not seeing any fruit but honey. That seed has to go into the ground and die before it will produce fruit. Maybe you're in a season of dying dying to the things you want, dying to the dreams you thought were from the Lord and you've. Maybe you feel buried, maybe you feel hidden, maybe you feel unseen. And I just want to tell you that the most important one sees you.

Audrey :

A lot of times we just think does anybody see? Does anybody see the struggles that I'm going through? Does anybody see the things that I'm tempted with right now? The most important one, he is the one who sees. He sees where you are. You know, jesus said unless a seed is buried in the ground, it abides along, but if it dies, it produces much fruit. And that's how I see this mama life. Most of it's hidden, most of it's buried in the ground, where nobody sees. It Doesn't matter. Do the things that I do every day matter? If nobody sees it? Does it matter? It does, because you're sowing those things in faith that they're gonna produce much fruit.

Audrey :

A lot of the things we do as moms are so hidden and it makes them feel like they're not important. But see, we work by a different set of rules. Now we are storing up our treasure in heaven, and it's not the treasure that people can touch and feel and see and and and admire us for here on earth. It's completely different. It's a different system and it's the kingdom. It's that way the kingdom works, and so God is. By grace, he will give us eyes to see that he sees that it matters, that the things that he's asked of us are not too hard. But they are hard. They're not too hard. He'll give us the strength, he'll give us the grace to continue and He'll give us the joy to sustain us.

Audrey :

I want to read for you Galatians 6-9. One of my favorite scriptures always helps me so much when I feel like giving up. It says let us not become weary and doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest. If we do not give up, we are going to reap a harvest, a harvest of righteousness. I also want to read for you from Hebrews Hebrews, chapter 12.

Audrey :

Let's start in verse 7. Endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as his children. For what? Children are not disciplined by their father. If you are not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline then you are not legitimate. Not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good, an order that we may share in his holiness. Verse 11 says no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful Later on. However, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Do you hear that there's a training going on in discipline? Verse 12,. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level pads for your feet so that the lame may not be disabled but rather healed. There's a process going on inside of you. God is training us, he's discipling us. He's disciplining us and it hurts and I don't like it and I'd rather he stop, but he loves me too much to stop.

Audrey :

Monday, I had to go to Sam's to buy some things for a coffee shop, and I know exactly what I want and I have my buggy and I'm going to the places in In Sam's. I need to go, and, and I do this every week, every other week, so I'm pretty quick, you know, and In my path. I see this poor mom with two kids. Now one looks like she's probably about three and she's setting they're both setting up in the front of the cart, you know and One of them looks like she's about three and the other little girl is like she might be one and a half, two, probably closer to two, and the little girl is having a fit, as we say here in the south, a hissy fit, and I could see the mom losing her temper and I did not look at her because I know how embarrassing that is. I Just kept on about my business.

Audrey :

But I I saw her later in the store and the little girl she had taken her out the buggy and she was holding her by the hand and Pushing the buggy with the other little girl in it with the other hand. And the little girl was still sobbing, she was still Breathing hard and every now and then had a big long moan. But she was walking with her mom hand in hand and she looked she was on the verge of having another fit. But mama was doing a great job and I was so proud of the oldest little girl. She was just sitting in the cart having her snack and Talking to mama like nothing was wrong, and I remembered those days and thought thank you, lord, for bringing me through those times. But it was so funny when I saw, you know, this whole little thing play through and I thought I'm that little girl that her mama is having to hold her hand and walk her through the store and she's on the verge of tears and Just one little thing Would push her over the edge.

Audrey :

And you might say what, what are you talking about? Well, I had to deal with some things last week that I did not like and I just felt like the Lord was not being fair with me and I felt like, lord, I have given you everything. You know, I'm just such a martyr, you know, I'm just so holy. I've given you everything, lord. And it's still hard and I'm just tired of things being hard. Can't things be easy for a little bit? And I had a little pity party and Then I sat down with Caleb to have school that next day and we were reading one of his missionary books and I was reading about a family that literally gave it all and it still didn't go well for them, but they cheerfully and gratefully gave it Because they were honored to serve him in a hard place and I Thought, lord, I'm so spoiled, I have first world problems, you know.

Audrey :

And and so the Lord Started showing me I'm discipline in you, audrey, and discipline doesn't necessarily mean you did something wrong. It means he's discipling you, he's strengthening you, he's maturing you. It's not all about right and wrong. Sometimes it's just about maturing you, helping you go to the next level so you can enjoy him at the next level. But you know, I'd rather just enjoy him here on this level and make why don't he just make everything easy for me? Because he loves us too much to leave us there. He has great plans for us, but he wants us to have great character to match it.

Audrey :

I'm so grateful today that he loves me right where I am, right in the middle of my nasty attitude. He loves me, but he loves me enough not to leave me there and He'll take me by the hand and he will bring me wherever I need to go. But he's not. I'm going to let me throw a fit and get my way, just like that mama. She took her by the hand and they went around and they did their business. They did what they needed to do, but she did not let her rule the roost. She did not let the little girl have her way, but she lovingly took her by the hand and led her where they needed to go. And I saw myself and that little girl. I thought, lord, I'm such a toddler. I'm such a toddler in the big scheme of things, but he loves us so that he wants to correct us and make us stronger.

Audrey :

And if, by the Lord's grace, we can start seeing that these difficult times are training, they're a training ground for what God wants to do in us, that he's making us into a strong Christian, into a woman of character, into the person that he created us to be, then it gives us a grace through those hard times. It gives us a hope. Through those hard times it makes sense of things that it's hard to make sense of otherwise. I'm going to read just one more scripture to you that I think will be encouraging. Romans 5, starting in verse 1, says Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance.

Audrey :

Some translations say patience, perseverance, character and character. Hope and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. You see, god is using even the things that we suffer through to build us, to make us to work in us patience, to work in us character, to work in us determination and hope. When you go through a lot of hard things, sometimes it doesn't seem fair, but it seems like those who go through the most hard things have the most hope. It's like God trusts them with hard things and in return, their faith becomes so solid, so real, that just getting around them gives you hope and faith.

Audrey :

I'm not saying I'm one of those people, I'm just saying I'm glad I know some of those people. That's a faith that you can't fake. You know a faith that is faithful through things that I pray that my family and I never have to go through. But when I get around other people that have and I feel the hope and I sense the faith and I see the steadiness of it. Thank you, lord, for that. And even if I will never attain to that level of faith or to that level of strength or trust in Christ, because my faith hadn't been tested to that level.

Audrey :

But just to be able to draw from that, just to be able to see God working and know that my little trials that sometimes feel so big are doing the same thing in me, helps me to accept those things as what they are. My father's discipline, my father's correction, my father's training, because he loves me. Now, I used to think sometimes things happen in my life bad because God was upset with me, because he was mad at me, because I didn't understand his great love for me, because I didn't understand the process. But when I got in the word and I started reading and I started seeing, oh, he's doing this because he's a good father and he cares about me and he wants me to be so strong that I can stand in the storm, then it changed the whole way that I see the trials and the things that I have to go through and that we all have to go through. You know we all go through these things. It's just how are we going to respond to them. Are we going to let them make us bitter or make us better.

Audrey :

And, ladies, I say today let's let them make us better. Let's be a reservoir for grace, a place where others can come and drink in God's grace, because he's done a work in us. We have something to give somebody else. The world so needs that right now. The world so needs to see true Christian men and women standing up, doing the right thing, you know, being humble, loving people, serving people and during hardship, with with a grace that the world cannot copy and will not understand. That is attractive to unbelievers, and God uses it. He uses it in our life and in the lives of others. He is making us women of character, his daughters, and it says it will shine like lights and dark places.

Audrey :

I love you and I pray that your week is awesome and that God would shine his light on you and you would see things in a new light, the way he did that for me this week. I really needed it. I needed to see myself as that little toddler that he's taken by the hand, he's not mad at, but he is not going to give into my little fit and I'm going to have to go through some things. I don't want to, but that there is a good end in mine. Amen.

Audrey :

Let's pray, father. Thank you that you love us, even when we act like two-year-olds. Thank you, lord, that you care about us. Thank you, lord, that you have a master plan that we will not understand until we get to heaven, but that you have entrusted part of the kingdom to us and let us be good stewards of it. I pray for these ladies today. I pray that faith would so rise up in their hearts and, lord, that you would shine your light on them so they can see a little further down the road, and that a joy would would spring up in them and a hope would spring up in them, and that they would be able to face next week, next year, lord, not afraid but excited about the good things that are in your plan, even the hard things. In Jesus' name, amen.