We break our podcasting hiatus with an unofficial side series that we're titling, "Table Talk." These are "out of the studio" recordings from live conversations that we've shared together on social media on topics that pertain to Christian Parenting and taking thoughts captive for Christ. The audio comes from direct recordings of our mobile devices so the recording quality does not match that of our regular episodes. We hope that you enjoy these conversations with us around the table!
In this discussion, we talk about the differences between adoption and surrogacy and how the latter is a distortion of the family and functions as a glamorized form of trafficking that has been disastrous from the time of Abram and Sarai, who sought to take matters into their own hands for childbearing with the birth of Ishmael through her maidservant Hagar.
It's summertime and many of us love to go to see the latest blockbuster films! But how often do we stop and think about why we watch the things that we watch?
In this episode, we share our personal experiences with films and media and how we have come to make decisions as a family in choosing what we watch, both as a couple and as a family:
What makes the cut?
How do we decide what is worth our time?
What content is allowable and when?
Does Scripture have anything to say about it?
All media comes with a message. Are we tuning in our minds to listen to what is being said or are we shutting off our brains and passively consuming? Learn how to engage your mind and take captive your thoughts for Christ even in front of the big screen.
How far are you willing to go for the sake of your children?
Parenting can be difficult and demanding. Caring for someone else and taking care of their needs requires a cost. But how far are we willing to go as parents? What's the limit of the sacrifice we're willing to make for the little ones in our lives?
In this episode, we discuss the concept of parenting as sacrifice and what it looks like to parent for the sake of future generations.
There's a story of a mother who pays the price of her own life in bearing a child. A heavy cost in parenting indeed. Was it worth it? There were other children born to the family by that point anyway, was it a necessary cost to pay? Should they even have considered having another child? And yet, God told them to have more children. In fact, He commanded it. Without this mother's sacrifice, you likely wouldn't be reading this right now. It's a story that you probably know, at least a little bit about. The story is the birth of Benjamin, the youngest of the sons of Israel. And there's a certain Benjamite that would later turn the world upside down in bringing the gospel all over the Roman empire as the "Apostle to the Gentiles." That's right, the greatest missionary ever to live, the Apostle Paul! We all have a reason to be thankful for the sacrifice that Israel and Rachel were willing to make so many generations before.
Aren't we all just supposed to be happy?
Do you remember that verse in the Bible where Jesus told His followers, "I just came here to make everyone happy..." Neither do we! That's really not what this is about is it... And yet, there are so many voices out there trying to tell us to do the things that just make us happy, comfortable, and feel good.
What does Jesus tell us?
"The Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost" (Luke 19:10b, LSB), and "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:10, LSB). And Jesus' followers later affirmed these things in saying, "Through many afflictions we must enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22b). In this life, following Jesus isn't about being comfortable and happy, and oftentimes it doesn't feel good. Just because something doesn't feel good, doesn't mean that it isn't good.
Having a speck in your eye doesn't feel good, but that pain also helps us to seek out the source of the problem, so that the dirt doesn't act like sandpaper to our eye and cause us eye damage. The feeling certainly isn't good but it's good to know that there's something wrong with our eye!
In this week's episode of Full Quiver Parenting, we discuss the difference between happiness and blessing. What does that look like as followers of Jesus and how does it apply to parenting and family life as Christians?
What happens when something is taken so far that we lose the actual intent and purpose behind it?
In this week's episode, we dig deep into the motivations of parenting choices and the heart that can lie behind the choices that we make as parents.
Drawing from St. Augustine's classic treatise, "On the Spirit and the Letter" we apply some of his principles that he draws from Scripture and bring it to some of the more controversial questions of parenting and the choices that we make in trying to parent and build a family according to God's design.
What we find is that it's not as easy as simply following a set of rules or blueprints, plugging in the proper formula and out comes the right mixture of a godly family. We must dig deeper than that as parents and allow the Spirit to penetrate the depths of our hearts and God's Word to reach into the depths of our spirits in order that He may find and refine our hearts for His good and godly purposes.
As Jesus said to the legalistic pharisees who thought they all had it right by simply following all the rules: "But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” - Matthew 9:13
Join us in the conversation as we share some our own self-examination as a couple on some weighty matters of parenting.
What is our heart in parenting?
Are we trying to raise up trophies who achieve all the prizes and are the picture of success in the world?
Are we trying to just go through the motions of passing on the family name the next generation?
Are we just fulfilling a dream of a spouse to have children? Or expectations of parents to become grandparents?
This week, we want to talk about cultivating the heart of Christ in ourselves as parents as we seek to raise our children and that begins with the formation of a heart of a servant.
As parents, we are privilege in forming the hearts of our children, playing a key role not just in forming the next generation but also the starting steps of eternal lives. Amidst all of the cries, and screams, and demands, the natural tendencies of our hearts can be to turn resentful towards these little ones who may always seem like their demanding from us, but we have the example of Christ before us:
"who, although existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." - Philippians 2:6-8
Christ came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many, as He tells the eager apostles James and John who seek to have the highest positions in the Messiah's Kingdom.
Parenting too is a space of humility and seeking to serve and show that self-giving. unconditional, sacrificial love on behalf of our children. it's with that kind of love that God has loved us and desires for us to love others, and especially our children with.
We love the prayer of St. Francis and think it's an excellent one to pray and meditate upon in cultivating a servant's heart in ourselves as parents:
"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offence, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life."
-St. Francis of Assisi
What is sex and what is God's design for it?
This episode is related to the topic sex and sexuality and as a result, may not be suitable for a younger audience. If your kids are listening to this podcast with you, we suggest you skip it and come back to it when they are not around (hence the explicit rating).
In a world obsessed with sex and pleasure, it's hard to find biblical
answers to these questions but the answers ought to be at the heart of
every marriage.
In this week's episode, we discuss what the Bible has to say about sex as part of reflecting God as Creator, as well as the union between Christ and His bride, the Church. With all of the glamor that our culture likes to throw over sex, it really pales in comparison to the incredible reality that God has made the sexual union between a husband and wife to reflect!
We also talk about the challenges that can come in marriage around sex, and how the devil seeks to divide what God has joined together. The areas of attack and why it is so important for the marriage bed to remain a sacred place, as the author of Hebrews says:
"Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled, for the sexually immoral and adulterers God will judge" Hebrews 13:4, LSB.
We also discuss the physical aspects of sexual union that have been under attack in the last two centuries with the wave of contraceptives. etc. that have resulted in the dehumanization of the act of intercourse.
Join us in this topic of intimacy and all that God has intended the marriage bed for, far beyond just pleasure!
"Any house divided against itself will not stand." - Matthew 12:25b Legacy Standard Bible
Have you ever tried to build something when someone else is continually trying to knock it down? It makes things really difficult! The same is true for our homes. When we're in a space of division, it can feel impossible to build something that will remain standing.
When we were first dating, we decided that we wanted to work through as many of the difficult conversations as we could up front. That meant that we asked each other a lot of hard questions. One of those questions was around having children if we were to marry. We quickly discovered that we were not on the same page... whatsoever.
Steven wanted to wait to have kids, as he thought it was irresponsible to bring children into a marriage if it wasn't established with a reputation of stability.
Lydia wanted to trust the Lord with children, and to receive as many children as God would choose to give to us.
How do you come to a unified decision in a relationship when you're at really different places?
In this week's episode, we walk through how those conversations went for us and we share how that could be helpful for your family and situation. Even if you haven't had those conversation ahead of time like we did, choosing to have those conversations at any point along the journey can be of great benefit!
Wanting to start the conversation but are not sure how to broach the topic? A great place to begin thinking about those questions around the purpose and design of the family and living a Christian life, is the series, "For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles."
Have you ever been excited about starting something new, but then you never actually do it? Maybe it was a new exercise program, a local community organization you wanted to participate in, a day trip with the family that you just never seem to get around to. It's great to have good intentions and to desire to do something but sometimes actually getting around to doing it, is an entirely different matter.
We talk about wanting to raise our children to follow after Jesus, but what does that actually look like on a day to day basis? Are we actually spending time with our kids in the Bible? Are we actually praying with or kids? Are we modeling for our kids in how we live as examples of following Christ?
In this episode, we share our journey of becoming intentional in following after Jesus in our daily lives as a family. Dig into the daily habits and routines of scripture reading, gather around the family piano for a time of worship, get on our hands and knees to pray, as we share with you the joyful, messy, frustrating, raw,beautiful, creative, time that is praying, praising, and worshiping God together as a family.
Want to know some of our favorite resources for family prayer and Bible study? Check out our Family Prayer Resources Page!
Are we as parents living our lives in such a way that God is easily forgettable to our children who are watching? Is our walk with Christ actually seen as important in the eyes of our children?
It's always entertaining to watch videos of children being interviewed about their life and what's important. Whether they are talking about their mom and dad, or what they think about God or their home or their school, you'll always find a similar theme. Children are brutally honest about what they observe. Our children pick up on everything that they see and hear. Want to know where most of their bad habits come from? WE usually don't need to look any further than ourselves!
So what are we passing on to our children when it concerns our faith in Jesus Christ? What are they observing in us?
When Moses gave his farewell speech to the children of Israel as they were preparing to enter the Promised Land, he warned them,
"Beware lest you forget Yahweh your God by not keeping His commandments and His judgments and His statutes which I am commanding you today . . . lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand made me this wealth.’ But you shall remember Yahweh your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day." - Deuteronomy 8:11, 17-18
This is the generation that were children when their parents were brought out of Egypt. They had seen all of God's mighty deeds in Egypt and they had seen all of the consequences of their parents in disobeying the Lord in the wilderness, as they wandered for 40 years.
Joshua gives a similar warning before his death, and it comes in Judges that after him and all of this generation who had entered the primised land died, that "there arose another generation after them who did not know Yahweh or even the work which He had done for Israel." - Judges 2:10b
What happened that this new generation did not know the Lord? Their parents had faithfully served the Lord. They were brave enough to enter and conquer the Promised Land, and yet their children seem to know nothing about the God who brought them there in the first place. How was it that their children did not know the Lord or the work that He had done?
Somehow, in the midst of the comforts that their parents had obtained, they failed to pass along to their children knowledge of the One who had provided such comforts. It's easy for us that once we've achieved something that we easily forget what got us there in the first place. We're a lot like this too are we not? It's easy for us to remember to cry out to God when our family is in need, but when we have all that we need, how quickly do we forget to stop and remember and thank the One who provided for us?
If we become complacent in our own walk with he Lord as parents, we should not be surprised to find that our children too are complacent about following God. Can we reasonably expect our children to remain in the church as adults if we as families are attending church a couple times a month at best, and maybe attending a weekly Bible study if we're really dedicated? To the outside observer, does our life really reflect a need for God? What about to our children, who are seeing all that we say and do?
Join us in this week's episode as we talk about what it takes for a generation to pass on the promises of God.
And enjoy this song from the Getty's that our family has enjoyed about Passing the Promise
How do you determine what’s important for your family?
Voices are constantly screaming for our attention and trying to tell us what family ought to look like. The right house, the right car, the right number of kids, smart kids who perform well in sports and academics, etc. Sometimes, it can feel impossible to measure up and many families end up finding themselves with the children raised and gone, only to have missed what was truly important. they may find themselves asking the question, "what was I chasing after in the first place?"
As parents, one of the most critical things we can to is to discern what is important for our family. And if we're not actively making those decision and choosing to live into them, we'll find that the world is ready to jump in there and make them for us. It's not enough for us to make assumptions when it comes to deciding what's important for our families, it takes proactive thinking and living to shape what actually becomes important for our families.
This week, we;re diving into some of the things that we've found to be most important for our family, how those decisions came about, and what we're doing to try and live into what's important on a daily basis.
We encourage you as a parents to sit down individually and think through some of these things, and then come together to discuss them and see what you find to be important for your family. Are you both on the same page? Is what you thin to be important acually being lived out on a daily basis, or is it stuck in the land theoretical?
We have a little resource for your family that may help aid you in the process of figuring out what's important for your family. It's called "A Family Rule of Life." Check it out below:
Have you ever wondered why God has created us in families? What's the purpose of family? Is it simply to keep the human race going or is there something more than that?
This week, we're journeying through God's word to see what He has in mind for family. What is the origin of family, how is God working through family, God coming down and entering into family, and us becoming a part of God's family.
Bear with us on this one, because we have some very practical applications that come from this!
If we don't understand the purpose of family, and then specifically our own individual families, it can be difficult to have direction as a family. But God calls us to so much more than just functioning from day to day. He wants our family on mission, living out His image, reflecting His unconditional love, ministering His reconciliation, and growing into the family He has made us to be in His Kingdom.
In a world that is so fixated on performance and achievements, this changes everything in how we live and love and function as parents. It's not about what our family looks like, how "Successful" it is, how great our children's academic and career performances are, but it's about a love that can never be broken. It's about a relationship of father to son, mother to daughter, etc., that can never be undone, just as the love of God the Father for His beloved Son can never be shaken.
What happens when urgency takes over what's important in our lives?
What happens when we set aside the long term picture for the short term obstacles?
2020 was a unique season for everyone, but what can we learn from it as families? When the world is seeking to protect itself from the things that are perceived as scary, urgent, dire, what are to whom are we to turn to? And what does that communicate to our children when things are tough?
For our family, we watched as the world called families to live in a space of fear rather than hope that we have in Christ. We watched as churches closed their doors for the sake of physical safety to the detriment of spiritual security in the One who has given us eternal life. Lives were stopped in the name of preservation, rather than surrendered to the Lord as "living sacrifices" as Paul says in Romans. What effect does this have on our children?
Children are always watching, they're designed that way. It's through observation that children learn and grow and they emulate what they see around them. When we say that "it's not safe to gather at church," or "it's not safe for you to continue your education right now," what's being communicated to them is that either those things aren't essential in their lives, or they themselves are not essential. Do we want our children to believe that they don't matter? Do we want our children to believe that the practice of their faith in the midst of fear is not important? Certainly it is in the tough times that those two things ought and need to be affirmed all the more.
Listen as we share our reflections on this season in our world and how it reminded us of what was truly essential for our family.
Should a minister in the church have a large family?
How could he attend to the duties of his ministry?
How could he provide for a large family on a ministry salary?
how could he attend to the cares of his family while also attending to the cares of his flock?
The life of a minister can be so demanding. How could one possibly be able to attend to the things of God's church as well as the things of a family?
And yet, we see in the Apostle Paul's qualifications of a minister in 1 Timothy and Titus, that a minister ought to be a respectable father in his own house, with respectable children. In fact, Paul goes on to say in Timothy that "if a man does not know how to lead his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?" (1 Timothy 3:5, Legacy Standard Bible). Indeed then, one of the tests of godly character for ministry, at least for those who have children (seeing that Paul himself had none), is to see the fruit of the household.
Life in ministry is indeed difficult, just as life within the family is not easy work. But that does not mean that God calls His ministers to forsake the proper care of one over the other. All too often, family is neglected and it will inevitably lead to the detriment of the other. And if the family is not neglected, then it is often cut short, with the intentional rejection of more children.
In this episode, we discuss our journey in ministry and the challenges we faced in desiring a large family in ministry.
Are children really welcome in God's house?
When it comes to having children in church in America, there's only one place for them, Sunday school. This is the norm in our modern day setting for children to go off to their own spaces, while the adults have their "real worship" in the main service. But...
Does this show children that they are welcome in God's house?
Does this teach them that they belong among God's people?
Does this teach them they belong to God?
When some children were trying to be brought before Jesus to be blessed, the disciples kept them from coming to Him. But Jesus said to His disciples, "“Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Matthew 19:14, Legacy Standard Bible). It's easy to miss the importance of children in God's Kingdom. Jesus had to remind His disciples just how important it was for these little ones to be with Him and even that His Kingdom was their inheritance. Jesus demonstrated just how much the children belonged to Him.
When we had our first child, we made the decision that we would always have our children in church with us. We would be a family that worshiped together. What we quickly discovered on that journey is just how powerful that space of worshiping together as a family can be, not only for our children and for us but as a picture of how God has designed the family to be. Our children quickly learned how to pray, how to sing, and even were able to express the truths of God's word in ways that only a child can express, with a simple and beautiful faith.
In this episode, we share some of our personal journey in choosing to bring our children into God's house and the blessings and challenges that have come with that decision.
Do you ever have those moments in your parenting when it feels like it's just too much to handle? Whether the strain is physical, mental, or emotional, those moments can push us to our limits. It's at these times when the temptation to throw in the towel can feel overwhelming.
Like Esau, who gave up his birthright for a meal, we can be tempted to make some foolish decisions that we will come to regret. But even as parents, we're encouraged that in the midst of trials that seems sorrowful in the moment, to know that "afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:11b, Legacy Standard Bible).
One of those moments for us came with some immense challenges in the transition to having three children that were accompanied by some health struggles for Lydia. Fear came to grip Steve, which led him to contemplate a path that would have been a regretful for one for our family.
It's in those moments that we most need to turn to the Lord and seek His strength. Choosing to trust in Him and not learn on our own understanding, when we feel like the task before us in parenting is more akin to feeding the five thousand with our feeble loaves and fishes.
What came out of this season for our family, was to think through family wellness from a biblical perspective. In a world that desires comfort more than wholeness and numbing more than healing, we began to wonder if some core assumptions about family wellness in our culture really matched up with God's design.
Psalm 139 says that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made . . . intricately woven in the depths of the earth" (vv. 13, 15, LSB). If we are God's design, than we are designed well. We are not some cosmic accident that is in need of redesigning. That's not how the world sees it. Rather, we are cosmic accidents in need of perfecting. Those are often the underlying assumptions that have come with modern ideas of health, which have led to a less than holistic perspective of caring for our bodies, the temple of the Lord.
If you want to know what some of our favorite resources are for holistic family wellness, check out our resource page here:
What does being created in God's image have to do with parenting?
This question was at the center of our dating relationship. The answer that we found in God's Word, would shape all of what was to come in our marriage and in the journey of parenting.
How we choose to answer big questions like these can have a lasting impact on not just ourselves, but future generations. For us, it meant taking God at His Word, that He is the Author of Life, and that by our very nature we are made to image God through marriage and parenting. In fact, the very acts of marriage and childbearing, are a picture of the love we see in the Trinity and the resulting outflowing of life, all of creation.
There is no doubt then, as to the reason why God gives the first command of "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth..." (Gen 1:28). He has in mind for His image-bearing creatures to image Him in the act of co-creating with Him through the union of love and oneness that we find in marriage. It's a picture of Him.
The task is also one that is beyond the present. The task is too great and too lofty for one generation to undertake. It would be the task of the generations to carry out. Because the Lord is an abundant who creates everything in abundance, from the countless stars in the sky, to the countless grains of sand on the seashore, so His image bearers are to create in abundance.
Join us in this week's episode for how these great truths have shaped our marriage and parenting!
What if parenting isn't just for the sake of raising up the next generation to be faithful?
What if parenting is something that God is using in our own lives to transform us more into the image of His Son as we learn what it means to love and serve sacrificially?
In this week's episode, we'll be discussing how God shapes our hearts, matures us, and points out our weaknesses to make us stronger through parenting. Children can be like little mirrors, reflecting back our own selfish thoughts, actions and desires. We all have those moments, when they give us a certain look, or repeat a phrase we use, or use the same body language, and we realize that they are learning from what we as parents are doing. Those moments can point to the work that still needs to be done in our own hearts.
From the time a child is conceived, particularly for the mother, a level of sacrifice is required upon the part of parents to care for the life of this new little one. The mirror is reflected in our own hearts as to our willingness to lovingly give of ourselves to our children. It's a picture of how Christ sacrificially gave of Himself for us and that kind of love is asked of us as parents.
Take a look in the mirror of the hearts of your children. What reflection do you see?
For more great conversations on shaping our hearts through parenting, check out "On the Doorframes."
https://www.onthedoorframes.com/
"The stork is coming to visit!"
"You know how that happens right?"
"You need to learn to stay off of each other!"
Where do children come from, really?
Our society lives like we are the ones in charge of creating new life. We've found that the more children God has given our family, the more vocal people become about speaking this belief. But any couple who has struggled with infertility knows that children can only come from the Lord.
When we were first dating, we had a conversation about children and we were not on the same page! Steven had been raised in a church that had taught newlyweds to wait until the relationship between the husband and wife was firmly established before bringing a new person into the relationship. Five years without kids was the recommended average. Steven was studying theology at Moody Bible Institute at the time, and Lydia asked the question, "who is the one who creates life?"
God is the author of life. It says over and over again in Scripture that God "opens" and "closes" the womb. And if He knows all that He has made, why would we think that there could be a life that could come from us that God did not intend? There are no "oops" children in God's creation. Instead, in creating us in His image, He has privileged us with the role of co-creators in bringing forth eternal beings into the world. Think about that! The little life that grows inside of a mother isn't a temporary organism, they have an eternal destiny!
In this week's episode, we will be discussing how this question shaped our marriage and has helped us to trust the Lord with the children He chooses to bless us with.
Children may be a blessing, but is it wise to have more than you can provide for? In our modern world, it's difficult to provide for a large family. Having a large enough home, a vehicle that can fit everyone, food to go around the table, and the time to ensure that each child is getting the attention, love, and training they need to succeed in this world can be difficult. Is it irresponsible to have lots of children if you don't have the income to match their growing needs?
According to Forbes, the average cost for giving birth alone is nearly $20,000 dollars!
According to USDA, in 2015 the average annual cost of raising a child was nearly $13,000. Add in inflation and that's up to nearly $17,000 as of 2022!
That means that for the average family size of 3.13 in America, nearly $20,000 a year is going to just raising children! It's no wonder people don't have more children, we simply cannot afford them with a median household income of just $70,000 a year.
This week, we're going to get a little personal as we share some of our family story and how God has extraordinarily provided in the midst of difficult circumstances. It's from the lessons we've learned on the journey of taking God at His word, that we have found Him to be faithful to provide.