Paideia Conversations, Ep. 6
Today we get to share a conversation with you where Melissa Cummings, Jenn Discher, and Rachel Jankovic talked about the atmosphere of paideia being the very air we breathe (Rachel says that paideia “is not a thing we do, it’s a thing we live in”!), the fruit that God brings when we live in obedience to Him (Rachel says, “Just obeying brings about fruit you would never have thought of”), and the encouragement that it is to be someone who is plowing in hope (1 Corinthians 9:10).
Resources Mentioned:
upcoming book Sir Bad-a-Lot
Ephesians 6:4
1 Corinthians 9:10
1 Corinthians 15:58
Episode Transcript:
Melissa: joining me today is my cohost Jenn Discher from Paideia Southeast, and our guest is Rachel Jankovic. We invite you to join this conversation with us as we continue to practice, pursue, and implement paideia. Good morning, Rachel!
Rachel: good morning, how are you doing?
Melissa: thank you so much for taking the time. We appreciate it.
Rachel: sure.
Jenn: hi, Rachel.
Rachel: hi.
Melissa: this is Jenn from Georgia at our Paideia Southeast community, so…
Jenn: what Melissa and I wanted to talk about, being paideia, the idea of paideia. So Melissa is with Paideia Northwest, we are just – a few of us are just kind of getting Paideia Southeast together, and so similarly to Melissa’s group, Paideia Southeast – we’re wanting to equip, encourage, and connect moms who are seeking to raise their kids in the paideia of God. Which begs the question, what is the paideia of God?
Rachel: that’s a good question!
Jenn: yeah, yeah! So we talk about it a lot. And we talk about it because it comes from Ephesians 6 where Paul is telling the Christians to, you know, raise their kids in the paideia of God… which is a word they would have been familiar with, the Ephesians. But we’re not as familiar with it today. There’s not like one English word that translates perfectly. We hear nurture, discipline, training, in Scripture – that the paideia be translated to those. So how would you, if you had to explain that concept to someone who wasn’t familiar with it?
Rachel: right, and this is probably not, I’m not saying that this is an academic definition of what paideia means. I would say it’s just culture. It’s enculturation, it’s… so it encompasses everything. It’s what you, it’s what kind of food you eat, what kind of things you think are normal, what kinds of, like, what is your entire culture. And when we’re to raise our children up in the paideia of God, it’s really saying, everything about their life, as much as you’ve been raised up in the culture of being American or how people are rural people or, you know, whatever things are normal – what is, what you know, what you believe – it’s sort of the things you believe in your bones that you don’t know how they got there. You know, it’s not, it’s not specific. So that’s what I would say, that’s how I would define paideia of God. It’s like, people who love the Lord, serving the Lord with all they have, what does that produce? It produces tangible Christian culture, and you’re bringing your children up in that culture and that necessarily, it’s the air they breathe, it’s what they know.
Jenn: yep, I love that. And honestly, I think it’s that stuff, what you just described, that I probably glean the most from your resources over the years, because I think just by listening to – either by listening to people who have either grown up in that themselves and/or are, you know, trying to do it in their own lives, you learn by observation. Like, just by listening to other mature believers, like, what is normal for them. It’s like, oh, that’s, that is the paideia of God.
Rachel: like, you mean that we don’t have to get mad at each other and then just let it sit for a whole day, like, we’re gonna have to just live in this stink mood? It’s like, sometimes people don’t realize, you don’t realize it’s possible for it to be a different way.
Jenn: yes.
Rachel: and then once you realize it’s possible, it’s like, well why are we not doing that? Like is that consistent with God’s Word, and if so, then by all means do it. [laughter]
Jenn: absolutely. Just like having cheerfulness, gratitude, being like part of the atmosphere of your home, and having it be like a joyful place to be that the paideia of God isn’t like this white knuckling dour thing that we’re doing.
Rachel: totally. And it’s not a thing that we do, it’s a thing we live in. It’s not a… it’s not a… I think what I’m trying to say, it’s not of our own doing. God uses… God uses our efforts to please Him, to make things that matter more, but it’s not like you could sit down and be like, I’m gonna do something really important today, and it’s gonna matter forever in the lives of my children. Because we all know, you try that, and they don’t remember it, do they? [laughter]
Jenn: no, they don’t!
Rachel: Like, there’s something… or like my dad always says, you could save for years to take the kids on an amazing vacation that they won’t remember, but they’ll all be talking about that time we stopped at the gas station and got bubble gum on, you know, that roll of bubble gum. You’re like, [laughter] why do you remember this? Why don’t you remember the things that were cooler?
Jenn: nope, you cannot choreograph it!
Rachel: no, no. God doesn’t give us that authority.
Jenn: you’ve spoken about this a little bit, but in terms of pursuing or implementing by God’s grace, this paideia of the Lord in your home, can you give us kind of like a, a tangible peek of that? What or how that might look kind of fleshed out? And again you kind of already alluded to this a little bit.
Rachel: so the things that I would say are critically important in a Christian home: staying in fellowship with God, that’s, that is the thing. So like, sin that needs to be confessed, confess it as soon as you know it’s there, confess it. Like this is a really important thing. I’m really involved in the Bible Reading Challenge. This is one of the reasons I’m involved in the Bible Reading Challenge; like, I think it matters way more than we think it matters that women are, you know, very connected to God and His Word, that we’re submissive to that. I’ve used this illustration before, so sorry if you’ve heard me use this. But you know when you’re breastfeeding a baby, you don’t actually know what’s happening, right? You’re the… you are the means by which God is nurturing this child but you know when they do these studies and they’re like, it’s incredible because the baby has a cold and we don’t even know how the mother’s body finds out that the baby has a cold but the vitamins are boosted and things are happening that are like beyond your understanding. You know like, just way beyond your understanding. So if it was just me and my brain, I wouldn’t even know what vitamins the baby needed. Like, I might not even recognize what they need for what kind of growth is happening right now. I don’t know that. But it is the closeness that I have with the child and the, that that’s the mechanism that God made to meet this need. So I think that that is what’s such a critical part of fellowship between, is parents being in constant fellowship with God, and then in fellowship with their children, more is happening in that relationship than we have the intelligence to even… you know, like, we don’t have, we don’t even know it. We don’t know what it’s doing, we don’t know what’s needed, but it’s because God is actually doing something there. And it’s, it’s that faith that you confessing your sins, you walking with God, you loving your children, you confessing your sins to them, you getting things right – it’s maintaining that closeness between all of you that God uses to really grow them up in ways that you couldn’t even… and I think that that’s a great picture of paideia anyways because it’s like, we don’t even know what we’re communicating, which is why it is so important that we be submissive to God, that we want to be walking with Him, because we want to know that we’re communicating Him, not just our own desires and our own likes. I think I might have not really answered that question.
Jenn: no, I think you did.
Rachel: I’m like, what did you actually ask? Because I might have gone rogue. [laughter]
Jenn: I don’t know if you did or not, but I’m glad you did.
Rachel: well, whatever, we went on that tangent!
Jenn: yes! No, I think that’s, because I think, I mean… it’s done by faith.
Rachel: totally!
Jenn: and not by understanding.
Rachel: exactly. And it’s not, it’s not that God allows us to use our understanding, He grows us in wisdom, He gives us… so, I have nothing against, I’m not saying like, oh it can only be this organic feeling and nothing else.
Jenn: sure.
Rachel: but we’re really dumb if we start thinking it was the lesson we just gave our kids, it was the thing that we just explained that somehow accomplished that. Because I think they see, they’re learning something that’s not the thing we think we’re teaching them all the time.
Jenn: true.
Rachel: we’re like, here’s the lesson – and you don’t actually know what they’re taking away from that.
Jenn: yes, for better or worse! [laughter]
Rachel: I was talking with some friends yesterday about how when you look at something that you are delighted in, like it’s a beautiful sunset, or you’re like oh my word look at that flower or look at this bug or something that you’re, you know… or even on your phone and you start laughing, what do your kids all do? Everybody wants to see what you’re looking at, right? They will crowd all around you to look at what you’re looking at. But as soon as you’re not, if you are not in the joy of the Lord, if you’re angry about something or if you’re frustrated, nobody looks at what you’re looking at. They’re not looking at the pile of shoes by door, they’re just looking at you. You know, like, and you’re like, who did this? And nobody even looks at that. They just, all they’re doing is looking at you not dealing with it well. Like, wow, Mom’s having a problem. [laughter] And I think that that is, that is the thing, is that if you’re frustrated and you’re trying to give them a lesson about God’s kindness or God’s forgiveness, nobody is looking at the lesson. Nobody’s looking at God with you. Nobody’s looking at this beauty. They’re just looking at you like, well, she’s having a problem, she’s not doing well. And I just think that just goes back to the reason why we have to be so careful to be in submission to God and to be in fellowship with Him.
Jenn: love it. What is a resource, maybe a book, website, event, song, poem, habit, podcast that you might recommend to moms who are seeking to raise their kids in a specifically Christian culture?
Rachel: I would say probably my dad’s book Why Children Matter would be a great book. And then I would recommend, although I don’t usually recommend my own things…
Jenn: go for it, do it!
Rachel: I would recommend the podcast I do with my sister, and the reason I would do that is I think we… it is very normal Christian women talking about their normal life in the context of how we want to live in submission to God. It’s not like a dead earnest spiritual podcast, right? So, which I think is a real problem that women struggle with, is that we think that it’s either on or off with our spiritual life. It’s either what we’re doing in this world or it’s what we’re doing in our journals, but it’s not those things held together. It’s not what I believe coming out in the way I, you know, clean my floors or the way I laugh at my mistakes, or whatever. So I would say it’s a non-academic podcast. I cannot guarantee that it will be very edifying, but it is a… it is practical in the sense in that if it’s unfamiliar to you to live yourself in a culture of Christian life, then I think that that’s what the podcast does actually illustrate.
Jenn: I think it does, personally. I would recommend it for that. And my eleven year old daughter listens with, to it with me, and she giggles her way through it. So it is, it is a fun… it’s not just a straight laced spiritual podcast.
Rachel: no, I mean we don’t, I don’t know if we could do that if we tried. But the point is still, application of your faith in everything, or thinking, or a thoughtful application of your faith in your life.
Melissa: so, Rachel, where did the name come from? So What Have You…?
Rachel: I think the name was just to illustrate that we were not binding ourselves to any one topic. [laughter] We’re like, it’s just whatever we feel like talking about today.
Melissa: yeah.
Rachel: that’s what the name comes from.
Melissa: I feel like it goes back to that idea that all things are under the lordship of Christ and you know, what have you been cooking, what have you been reading, what have you been… like, what have you confessed?
Rachel: what do you have on your mind? It’s really any of those. Plus, we didn’t even realize for a long time that the, that it stands for WHY. Like, people would text me an all caps WHY, and then start talking about something. I was like, why what? What are we talking about? I was like, oh, What Have You says WHY. [laughter]
Melissa: so you hadn’t thought of that!
Rachel: no! We were not paying very close attention to anything, we were just like…
Melissa: oh, serendipity!
Rachel: we’ll just call it that, let’s move on. [laughter]
Melissa: excellent. Well, one of the things that we love hearing from you is things about your family’s Sabbath practices. And talking about an explicitly Christian culture and things we want to raise our kids in, that we’re just offering but not forcing. I feel like that’s how Lord’s Day habits sort of bathe our kids in that essence of that culture and the way you prepare for it, the way you practice it, and how it influences the rest of the week. So talking about rest and specifically the rest that God asks us to offer to Him one day a week, how do you find that necessary in motherhood and how do you live that out?
Rachel: okay, I would just say… well, there’s a couple things. First of all, I think that there’s no Christian woman on the planet who would say we don’t need rest. Right? Everybody agrees we need a break from what we’re doing, we need rest. But if you actually tell women yes, you should rest on the Lord’s Day, all of a sudden everyone’s bristling and like, don’t make me! I can’t! You know, it’s like this really funny, like… we have a major aversion to resting in the one way God tells us to rest. And then we’re like, no it’s really important that I get a manicure, it’s important that someone take the kids for me, it’s important that I do this because I need to rest. I need down time, I need whatever. I always feel like I have to say this: to be clear, I have no problem with someone having time off in the week sometime also. So I’m not, this is not about, you can’t let your mother in law take the kids so you can have some time to think for yourself. It’s fine. But our, it’s amazing how we hold those two things. Like, we’re so unaware of our own rebellious spirit in that, right? Like we feel like… it’s very common to feel, really be discontent with the work God has given you, too be, feel like you deserve rest that He’s not giving you because babies are around the clock, children are… you know, like, this is a really hard job. It’s common to resent that, and then also resent the rest that God tells us to have. And I just think that’s a really, that should flag in our minds that we’re, that this is actually a sin problem. Right? Like, if you’re like, I hate the thought of having to rest on Sunday, then you know, if God did tell us I still don’t want to do it. I mean, it’s really interesting how open people are with how much they’re, I don’t want it, whatever He says, I don’t want it. So I just want to say that first. Second, I do believe God made a provision for rest. I think what’s interesting is that the provision for rest He’s given us is His kind of rest, not our ideal of rest. It’s very different than – it is not the same. My family has, we have celebrated the Sabbath for years now. Since Ben and Bekah got married, and I think that’s been probably 22, 23 years. So every Saturday night the family gathers, we have a big family dinner, it’s kind of, it’s a party kickoff for the Lord’s Day. Right? So, starting in the very beginning it was more like, that’s when we had our best food, but it was still not a big gathering of people, it was a small table full of people but it was like our, you know, we would actually have a dessert with dinner, we would have wine with dinner, we would toast – that kind of thing. Fast forward now, and I think without guests – although it’s always changing – I think now we have forty-five people every Saturday. Without having guests, so that’s our baseline family, because it has looped in family on both sides. Every, you know, we just have a lot of people gathering. And it’s a real, talking about paideia, that’s a thing that’s so deep in the bones of my children that I think they’re like, they’re totally confused if we have a Saturday without that. Like they’re like, what are we even doing?! What is this? [laughter] And I love that. But that has been, so the idea behind that was to lean into gratitude and joy. What God has given us. So we are not strict Sabbatarians in a lot of ways that some people are. We are not like opposed to stopping at the grocery store on Sunday, like we are, we are flexible with that but we are very careful to not like, I think when we first started doing it when I was a teenager, I was like, do you mean I can’t do my homework on Sunday? And Dad was like, no, it means you get to not. Like, you can have a burden of things you need to do that you do not need to on the Lord’s Day. Like, even though that’s a thing that’s hanging over me, it’s, it’s, I get to not do it and not be irresponsible. Now, through the years when we had little kids, that my mom was hosting it, so it was different for us. But I almost always made food or contributed in some way, so the Saturday was like, everybody’s at home, it was very hard to try to have the house in a, like in a clean and orderly state while you’re making a lot of food. Like I’d probably have to run to the grocery store to get stuff to make something which may only barely be done by the time we leave to go to Mom’s house, so there might be pots and pans in the sink and stuff. You know, like, there, a lot of the time we were leaving the house Saturday night with the house not at all put together, and leaving. For years, I think, I made… I would say now I was making excuses, at the time I don’t think I was making excuses. You know, I think I wouldn’t have thought I was at the time. Now I’m like, eeeeehhh, yeah, that was a bunch of excuses.
Melissa: right.
Rachel: it was sort of like, I can’t rest if this is all messy, you know. Like, I, it’s not restful so I’ll tidy this up. Or this is not restful so I want to get to a restful place so I’m going to kind of, you know, I should do this first. Or the idea that I would like to take a Sabbath off when I was organized enough to have everything ready to be restful. And I, at some point it just, I was really convicted of that. Like I realized I’m not, what that totally is, is like, I will submit to my husband when he does something that I want to submit to. I mean, it’s totally putting, it’s like once everything aligns so that I’m willing to do this, then I will do it. So at that point I was like, you know what, I’m just gonna treat the Lord’s Day as a: stop! put your pencils down! Whatever, wherever the house is, we stop. Like, whatever it is that’s happening, we’re done until Sunday night. So Sunday at six is when we, we go six to six, and we are not so strict that – we have people in our home now, and so Saturday, whatever we do after dinner, we clean up. You know, like we’ll load the dishwashers. We’ll do whatever. But wherever it is when we, like, whenever we stop that evening, it’s usually, I like, can’t remember it being all cleaned up. Right. Like I can’t remember our house not having tablecloths, napkins, extra tables, chairs, like the counter full of dishes, like, usually we have both dishwashers going, and then we leave it there. But there’s garbage, I mean it’s – it looks like…
Melissa: like you’ve had a party.
Rachel: fifty or sixty people came and ate!
Jenn: yeah, yeah!
Rachel: that’s what it looks like. And that’s just, that’s it. We just stop. We don’t do anything else until Sunday, the next, at six. And the thing that I have been so impacted by is that God’s rest is not like ours. And also God’s rest is way better. Like, way better! And I think it’s so funny, because as long as I was trying to get to Sunday being like a, like a spa day – not really a spa day, but like everything so calm that I just feel calm so I’m going to, like, so the natural thing is to put your feet up by the fire and just have this lovely moment. I think it’s, what’s so interesting is that ever since I’ve been doing this, Mondays are my favorite day. I love Monday. Like, the amount of energy and delight I have at getting back to it and getting my regular work done – I don’t think relaxing in a calm environment makes me so ready to work. Like, I think, it’s just a very interesting thing that God’s rest makes me delight in the work that I have. I love to get back to it. And that’s just been, that’s been wonderful. And one of the funniest things to me, my kids, they’re all involved in helping, always, get ready for Sabbath. They set the table, they’re helping with the food, they’re very involved. So they understand the work of hospitality, and the joy it gives them to come home to the house that’s like chaos in the, in the dining room at least, you know, it’s like wow here is crazy. And to be like, we don’t have to do anything until tonight! Like everybody’s like, we joke, I mean they call it Secret Sundays like we’re always like, haha, like everybody comes in and they’re like, yay, it’s my favorite day! And I would not have anticipated that I would never have thought that my kids would delight so much in the obvious work that we need to that we don’t have to do right now, that we’re just like, we’ll just leave that till later. And obviously this is specific to our particular life. It’s just that it’s given me an insight into the fact that just obeying brings about fruit that you would not have thought of. I would never have thought for a fun thing for my kids, why don’t we weekly have the house in chaos and have them not have to clean it up? I would never have thought of that! [laughter] But the sweet part about it is at six we always turn on music, or it’s like all right everybody it’s time to clean up, and the way that everybody is ready to do and refreshed and, it’s like, we just get ready for the week. After six there’s a lot of like getting ready for lunches and cleaning up and talking and it’s a really sweet time of fellowship then also. But that’s not the kind of thing I could have ever scripted as, let me tell you what will be such a fun thing to do as a family. [laughter] Like, to have a day where you ignore all the mess in the kitchen, like, it will be so fun! So anyways, that’s what we do.
Melissa: so what do you do on Sundays, then?
Rachel: we call them Secret Sundays!
Melissa: so what does that look like?
Rachel: everybody… it’s a lot of reading, crafting, goofing off, napping… I mean, it’s, there’s no real script to what happens on Sunday. It’s whatever people want to do. Sometimes they play video games, they might watch a show, or, it’s just a completely different mood of a day. Every once in a while we might do something like, let’s have a fun, like, let’s get some fun food and make something, we’ll make something different to feed ourselves. Even then it has a completely different feel because our kitchen’s a mess. We would never do that, like, it’s such a different thing to be like, let’s make a fun something in the middle of that. So yeah, I guess it’s just made its own culture. Sunday has made its own thing going on. Sometimes we would go on a hike or do something, but not – usually it’s very low key.
Melissa: it sounds like it’s an organic pursuit of joy and fellowship which can take many different manifestations.
Rachel: it’s whatever actually delights the people that are in your house. So a lot of the time, now that it’s cold, it will be a fire in the living room, and people – I don’t know – they might be playing chees or playing a board game or reading or there’s a lot of craft supplies everywhere. One thing you can guarantee is that we will have made it more of a mess by the end of Sunday.
Melissa: that’s what I was thinking.
Rachel: we will have really leaned into this whole situation.
Melissa: worship, obviously, is also a given. Right? But talking about the Bible Reading Challenge as well… how does that bring rest into the other days of the week?
Rachel: I think I would say it’s a kind of rest that is confidence in God, confidence in His Word. I have, since doing… when we started the Bible Reading Challenge, I think we already had a church community that revered God’s Word and a lot of people that were already Bible readers. So it was not like we came into a community that didn’t read their Bibles, you know, but just even locally I have seen such an increase in the confidence women have in what the Word accomplishes that it has been really remarkable. Like, one wonderful side effect is you see women who are actually equipped to counsel themselves and equipped to encourage and admonish friends. Like, they actually have a more confidence in God’s Word. They’re feeling like, no I’ve actually, I actually know that you can trust God’s Word. You know, like, they are very differently bold about God’s Word. Differently bold about telling people with problems, you need to be reading your Bible. You know like this is an important part of your life. So I would say that that’s just, that is a defining, it should be a defining characteristic of Christians, that we serve the Word, right? We serve the Word made flesh. This is what we’re named after. That we should be a people of the Word, like how you know, how do we dare say that we’re followers of Christ when we are not actually reading His Word? We’re not… and I’ve used this example on the internet somewhere before… but it’s like if you said, oh I’m a Jane Austen fan. You know, I love Jane Austen, but the last time you read Pride and Prejudice was like fifteen years ago. And when someone says something to you, like… or you’ve only seen the movie, or you’ve only… you know, you’re like, I’m a huge fan, but I don’t know it. Right? I’m a huge fan, but I am not… and compared to Scripture, Pride and Prejudice is nothing, right? Like it’s a tiny little thing that does not have… that is, it’s a tiny little thing. Well anyways, if somebody, if you hadn’t read it, and someone comes up to you, oh you like Jane Austen! Don’t you think it’s weird how Darcy shows his, kind of you know, his classist pretentions to the innkeeper in that wherever, and he’s so, it’s such an abusive relationship? Like, you could be like, what? No, like I like, ohhh, but the shame of not knowing what they’re talking about, right, there’s an embarrassment of, I say I’m a fan and I have no idea what you’re talking about… and just to be clear to anyone who’s listening, that doesn’t happen in Pride and Prejudice – that is a nonexistent, that is not a scene. Right? But you’re thinking, I’m pretty sure there’s an inn. There’s an inn, right? There’s Darcy, he does have a pride problem, what am I… like, you kind of just go, ohh maybe that happened and you can play along. But that happens all the time with Christians and Christ. Where someone says, well, Jesus would never rebuke someone for their sin – He loved… and you’re like, oh, right? Unless you happen to have been reading your Bible at which time you’re like, mmmm that’s not true. What you just said is not accurate. And the women are led astray so quickly simply by their total lack of knowledge of what Jesus actually does say. And that confidence of, no I’ve actually recently read that. Of course people could still get in deeper than you expected them to get in with something and pull out, what does a Greek word mean, and you could be like, I’ll need to look into that, I don’t know what we’re talking about. But at the same time, you have a, you know Christ in a different way if you have been in His Word. And I think it is remarkable how flippant we are with that. Like, like we don’t really need to know Him, we can just be a faithful Christian without really knowing Who it is we’re following. It’s okay to not know about Darcy, it’s not okay to not know about Christ. It’s like, this is a different situation.
Melissa: right, but there’s also a delight in the connection, that fellowship of literally, as you say, being on the same page with one another. So Jenn in Georgia made a comment about, oh yeah I was just reading in Scripture this particular thing, and then she realized, oh wait, we’ve all just been reading that because we’re all on the same page! And there’s something really sweet about that.
Rachel: totally.
Melissa: so that’s another perk
Rachel: when we first started it probably one of the funniest moments I’ve ever had – I think it was the first year, we were all, everyone was in Genesis I guess, and we were in the bleachers of a volleyball game and it was like a major discussion among a lot of people from all different families about what was going on with Jacob and the rods and the sheep. People were like, well I read something because I was trying to figure this out – it was like, in the bleachers of the volleyball game, topic for discussion today, let’s talk about the breeding of the spotted, you know the whole, putting the rods in the water. [laughter] It was such a funny topic of conversation and yet it was so wonderful to just be so, like, that this is the sort of thing we can, you know, we can be like oh did you read that? I read that.
Melissa: yeah, I love that. Well we appreciate your work in that. Is there anything else that you find helpful in that pursuit of sort of a spiritual rest? Obviously worship on Sunday, you mention the Sabbath, setting it aside.
Rachel: right. Oh it’s, this is like an ongoing, I would say this is like a whole field of sanctification. Like it seems like, yeah, there’s a lot that you could talk about there. I was just talking with some friends about this in the sense that I think building Christian culture is a wonderful calling that women have. But it’s not an easy one, and it’s not something that will be done by women who are only doing things that come naturally to them or are, or are, they’re immediately good at. Right? So the discipline of pursuing things because you have a bigger goal in mind, because you’re like, this is something, like, I know my efforts will just be a foundation. Right? I know that whatever I’m working on is never gonna be the glamorous part of Christian culture and building God’s kingdom, but wanting to push it further and further in your own life and not just settling in a place that’s like, well, good enough. You know? This is as far as I need to go. And I love that anything that we claim for Christ is His, right? So as we’re reaching around, looking for ways to communicate the joy of the Lord and what it means to be a Christian and what Christian culture should look like, we just get to take anything. Like an apple pie is not by itself… something, you know, it’s not… I hesitate to say that. I’m like, is that true? I was gonna say it’s not holy. But I don’t know, it might be holy by itself, I can’t be sure. [laughter] But if we take it and do it to the glory of God, He establishes the work of our hands. Right?
Melissa: amen.
Rachel: it’s not the stockings that are that important, it’s not the pie, it’s not the table setting. It’s the people doing it to the glory of God. Right? And that whole concept, and I love this, I’ve said it before, but that in, that whole concept of, whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. It just opens up like, whatever you do! Like if you’re making quilts to the glory of God, that will matter in the lives of your child… you know, if you’re doing, if you’re cooking things, if you’re cleaning, if you’re doing all these things to the glory of God, it’s established and it’s building something, it’s making something. And I think that this idea that we have that what we’re doing is, like, it’s… okay… hold on, you asked what are the resources, and I was gonna say we were talking about this. And just today I was catching up… guess who was behind on Bible reading? [laughter]
Jenn: I think it’s a catch up day.
Melissa: it is!
Rachel: totally not my normal week where I was in… I’m in the Master’s program, a creative writing Master’s program, and I had classes all week which a whole other ballgame for me. I was like, this is not what I usually do. Okay, so as I was catching up, I flagged this verse, which I love. [1 Cor 9:10] That “he who plows should plow in hope and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.” Like, we’re hoping to build the kingdom, but we also get to partake in the joy of that right now. Like it’s a much bigger joy, it’s a much bigger thing than we have the access to, but we should still be doing it in joy here, and when I say that you were asking about rest, and I know this probably feels very loosely connected, except for how common is it that we’re trying to do something glorious for the Christian kingdom but we’re getting stressed out and we’re not partaking in the joy of what’s actually happening, what we’re actually doing it for? And Christmas is a great example of that, right? You’re like, I want this to be so fun and beautiful and joyful! And what is your temptation the entire time? Is to get just like ggghaaaaaa, like it’s so stressful, and feeding people and doing all this feels stressful, and I just think… when my twins were babies and I had two other toddlers, in that, I remember trying to make myself be like, screaming infants is not stressful. [chuckle] And actually thinking, I am not going to react to this physically like it is inviting me to. Right? You’re like, let’s just chill out and realize this is just news that I need to help them, right? Like I’m not gonna freak out if I’m changing one diaper and the other baby is screaming. I’m gonna just not respond physically to this. And I actually think that this is… I know from that example and then from the whole area of sanctification in my life, that this is a thing that you actually have the capacity to do and you can actually, you can actually strengthen the muscles that you have that blow it out, that don’t channel the stress, that’s like, well this is chaotic… and laugh and move on. Like, you don’t have to be… and in that way, we’re actually welcome to partake in a bigger rest than at times it feels impossible that we could be doing that. Right? Like, you have the capacity to not be partakers in the stress or in the noise but actually partake instead of Christ and His rest and the peace there. And it’s a real, I really think that’s a thing that’s like, you have to try it to know you can do it. But you can do it. You can actually just thank the Lord for it, blow it out, move on.
Melissa: yeah, yeah. We’ll repeat that constantly. What’s something you have read recently that has brought encouragement to your own framework of mind or your soul?
Rachel: hmm man, I’ve been reading schoolbooks. I’ve been trying to think, what did I just read? What have I been reading? Hmm. I don’t know that anything that I have been reading lately, I would say is that. I do think, I like to think more broadly of Christian culture which means that a lot of the time it’s more random take aways from things here and there that I would say are not, they’re not of particular… I wouldn’t recommend them to people to be like, read this book for a real understanding of that. So I don’t know that I have a good book recommend on that, that I would say, this is not actually a subject that I, like, probably the way Bekah and I talk about things on the podcast is the way I actually treat it in my own life. That you’re picking up fragments of things that encourage you, more than you are – I don’t have one place that I would say, oh I go here for encouragement. But this morning doing my Bible reading, catching up on stuff, that’s for sure a place that you’re like, here’s a random encouragement about the work that I’m doing today.
Melissa: yeah.
Rachel: that passage I’ve read a bunch of times and never actually taken it that way at all. Right? Like that’s something I’ve seen a lot of times…
Melissa: it’s a living Word, it’s always new, it’s always got something.
Rachel: I know, right? So it’s at the end of 15, 1 Corinthians 15 which I love – is therefore my beloved, you know it’s this whole discussion of the resurrection and the importance of the resurrection – and the ending, “therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” And I just love that because it’s like, oh, because we believe this, you can be steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord.
Melissa: yeah, hallelujah!
Rachel: and we’re always like, can we do that? Like, well that would be great. And you’re thinking, well it’s the fruit of actually believing in Christ and believing the resurrection. And so yeah, I guess that’s a cop out, to say read your Bible. That’s where you should be reading for your inspiration and encouragement.
Melissa: yeah, absolutely. Well, Rachel, thank you for taking time out of your busy life. We appreciate it.
Rachel: my pleasure.
Melissa: we’re looking forward to having you with us in person in, hold on, two and a half weeks?
Rachel: yes! All right, sounds good.
Jenn: thank you.
Melissa: thank you so much, Rachel. God bless you.
Rachel: you too. Buh-bye.
Melissa: bye, Jenn.
Jenn: bye.
Melissa: and that brings today’s conversation to a close. Thanks for joining us. You can find us at PaideiaNorthwest.com and PaideiaSoutheast.com for more resources and encouragement. Join me again next time for another Paideia Conversation. Until then, peace be with you.