FamilyLife Today®

Andrea Griffith: Love God, and then love others because if I’m loving Him, that’s going to come out of me. Because I’m not going to be all-centered on myself, I’m going to be able to see them, love them, talk about this God who’s changing me even in the moment because I need Him right now, because I’m overwhelmed. So I have to go back all the time to just what did Jesus say? The two greatest commandments: just to love Him and love others.

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I’m Dave Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Ann Wilson: We have Andrea Griffith back with us today, which is going to be another great day.

Dave Wilson: Yesterday was awesome, she told her story. If you didn’t hear yesterday, go back and watch or listen. You can do both or either, but let’s jump in and talk to Andrea.

Ann Wilson: I love even the beginning on week one, day one, you have a Tim Keller quote that says, “For Jesus to be the center of your life, it means He is in control. You no longer desire to independently run your own life, but you surrender your whole self to Jesus and to following His lead.”

And I think that’s making Jesus the center of it all. He loves you, He’s with you, He’s in control. So for me, each morning it’s like, “Jesus, I give You it all. I give You my everything. I can’t do any of this apart from You.”

I love the scriptures. It’s not just one little verse, it’s meaty. You can underline some things. And one of the questions I asked, and you ask at the end, is “What takes center stage in my life?” I was asking as a listener, let me ask you that. What takes stage? What’s at the center of your life? And one of the things I put to know what’s forefront in your mind is what do you worry about the most?

Andrea Griffith: There are so many things. Whatever takes center stage, it can be a thousand different things. A lot of times I find it’s just myself. I’m taking center stage. How do I take care of myself? What are my thoughts today? I’m taking center stage and I desperately want it to be Jesus. But because I’m human, I’m going to be fighting that until I eventually get to heaven one day. It’s a daily struggle, it’s a moment-by-moment choice.

Dave Wilson: Is "Centered" where you would start with these three, or does it matter?

Andrea Griffith: It doesn’t matter, you could start with any of them. Another one is called "Chosen": to know God and make Him known.

Dave Wilson: Let's talk "Chosen."

Andrea Griffith: My earliest memories are of being a kid wanting to be chosen for something, whether it was on the playground—

Dave Wilson: Share the story!

Andrea Griffith: I remember, I was never as good as you, Ann, in gymnastics and things like that, but I loved to run track. I did gymnastics. I’ve always been active. I just have to move. So I remember as little eight-year-old Andrea on the playground, I just wanted to be known as someone who could run fast on that playground. So it mattered what shoes I had, it mattered what clothes I had.

I remember we’d always play Red Rover in the school recess time. All the kids would get in a line and they’d hold hands, and there’d be a row of kids on one side and a row of kids way away on the other side. And you’d sing out, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Andrea right over!”

And so that would be my chance. I’d let go of the hand that I’m holding and I’d sprint across as fast as I could go. And the goal was to break through the bond. But they would never pick you if they thought you couldn’t break it, if they thought you were a wimp. And look at me, I’m not very big. So I always felt I had to prove myself so that I could be chosen. But the sad thing in life is I don’t know that I ever really outgrew it. I’m 55 and I still deal with those kinds of things.

Ann Wilson: We all want to be chosen.

Andrea Griffith: Yes, and it took me a long time. I had to be taught that that’s actually okay. It’s a creation longing that God has put in the hearts of every one of us, whether it’s to be seen or loved or to have purpose or meaningful work. Those are God-given things and I used to just beat myself up that I had those desires. But to learn no, those are creation desires. That was the world I was created to live in. It’s not the world I live in. I live in a broken world because of the fall.

But in Jesus, all of that is redeemed. Jesus does see me. Jesus has chosen me as His child, as a person that He set His grace on, His forgiveness on. He has chosen me in all the right ways. So when I’m not chosen in the world, how can I choose to put on the lens that God has chosen me? And His choosing, it trumps everything else.

Dave Wilson: It’s something, like you said, do we ever outgrow it? No. We really don’t. I literally spoke a few days ago at a men's retreat and told a story about how I as a dad stood up for a little boy, I think he was about 10, maybe he was 11 at my son's school, who was never chosen. He was the kid that people made fun of. And I tell this beautiful story of how I didn’t realize it, but when I stood up for him, he went home and told his mom that Mr. Wilson stood up for him. So I heard later that it meant so much to him.

I tell that story and this guy comes up in this men's retreat of these guys I’ve never met and probably never see again. And he walks up and he goes, “I’m Timmy,” because the boy's name was Timmy. Not that he’s Timmy, he just goes, “I’m Timmy,” and he has tears in his eyes. He goes, “Nobody ever chose me.” And he’s 40 years old now and he still feels it.

We don’t outgrow it. So we need a truth that says there is one, actually the King of the universe, who sees you, chooses you, loves you, approves of you, even though some guy or some gal may never. But that chosen truth, it has to center us. The two come together.

Ann Wilson: I’m even thinking of my dad who was 90 when he moved into an assisted living. And he would eat at the same table with the same men every single meal, three meals a day. And I would sit and eat with them when I was there. These guys were doctors, lawyers, incredible business people, very successful people. And my dad was as well.

But now they are no longer chosen. Very few people come to visit them, most of their friends have passed away. And I was thinking to myself one time when I was there, I thought, if you don’t know who you are and who God is, you come into this stage of life just like the beginning stages of life as kids or teenagers wanting to be chosen.

And they’re asking the question, “I don’t know who I am apart from this incredible career that I had, or without my spouse, or now that my health is failing.” I think we can get older and it’s even more important the older we get.

Andrea Griffith: I agree. So many things are stripped away from us. But in a way, if we can see it right, it’s a gift because we’re left with the only identity that matters. Dave just said it: Child of the King. Child of the King. And I wish I had learned this sooner. And it’s not that I’ve learned it perfectly now. I still have to do this. I still have to say, “Okay, they rejected me, they’re not coming back to our church anymore, we got that email,” but God has chosen me.

Because I think I lived so long out of an identity of trying to be chosen or wanted or seen or valued. And the whole time God was saying, “I give you all of that. I pick you. I already picked you. I see you, you are valuable to me.” And so if I’ll move over and put on the lens of the gospel, put on the lens of what God says instead of what I’m saying to myself or I’m hearing other people saying, there’s just such freedom in that.

Dave Wilson: That concept though, of what you just said, I think the three of us understand that we are chosen by the King of Kings and it gives us a security. I don’t think a lot of people—you have to meditate on that. You have to study it. It isn’t one sermon at church and the pastor says that and you go, “I got it.”

It has to be driven in over and over because the thing I’ve noticed, everybody knows this, the older you get, the less you get chosen. Some were never chosen, others lose that. And you have to have a foundation that says, “It’s not about whether I’m chosen by another human. I am chosen.” And actually, at any age I walk in a room and I have a lot to give because I’m secure in my identity. Now I’m not begging you to see me and choose me, I’ve got it and I can choose you. I can love you and see you.

You talk about your dad at that lunch room. All those attorneys and doctors and surgeons who don’t know who they are anymore, they sat at her dad’s table because all he did was say, “Hey man, you guys are awesome. Tell me about your life.” He asked question after question. They gravitate because he had a sense that he knew who he was and it wasn’t about him proving anything. It was about bringing life out of these other people.

That’s who I want to be. I want people coming to me because I’m secure enough to go, “It’s not about me. It’s about you, and I want to point you to Him because once you know Him, you’ll be like me. You’ll be helping others. Free.”

Ann Wilson: As a listener, here’s my question for you: what’s your thought life like about yourself? What’s your self-talk? Because that is a good reflection on how you feel about yourself, but really what God thinks. And Andrea, you’ve mentioned it, my self-talk was, “I’m a failure, I’m not seen.” And that’s not what God says. He’s like, “You are chosen. Just that. You are chosen. I love you, I died for you.” And so to take those thoughts captive and not entertain those thoughts, it’s big. And you’ve done that through the scriptures, through the questions that you ask. Jesus is helping to heal us through what you’ve done.

Dave Wilson: Talk about this subtitle here.

Andrea Griffith: "Chosen to Know God and to Make Him Known." I so agree with you, Dave. It’s not that a pastor says it one time or I hear it one time or even I read one verse that I get it. I have to be in the scripture and choosing to believe it over and over again. And I think I was just so desperate. I’ve told you my past, I’ve shared with you my past and so the things I did, the things I thought, the things I believed were so negative and so detrimental that I needed God’s word so desperately.

And I needed it every day. It wasn’t I just could read it one time and be like, “I’m good, I got this.” I needed it desperately every day. So for me to really believe that God has invited me to know Him, He wants to be this Father who loves me, who’s intimately acquainted with all my ways—I’ve got to stay in the word to keep believing that.

And then to say, and this God who’s saved and changed and has forgiven me and continues to forgive me every day, He wants you to know Him too. So to know God and then to get to make Him known to others who are walking in darkness or suffering or just lost or just caught. I just had lunch Sunday with a lady who’s recovering from anorexia and she was telling me all her self-talk and all the different things she’s had to go through and you’re like, there’s a God who wants to shine light into that and change the neural pathways that we have created because of our past or because of our wrong thoughts. His word overrides those things.

Ann Wilson: It changes us, literally.

Andrea Griffith: It does. If we’ll take the time to be in it and believe it and then fight for that truth.

Dave Wilson: In some ways, I’m guessing you have a similar history with Cru and even FamilyLife. That’s the purpose of life. I think every second of every day I’m either getting to know God or making him known. Getting to know him or making him known. It’s why we’re on the planet.

Ann Wilson: Which takes us to your third study. It’s called "Called": Living in God's Compelling, Unavoidable Summons. And we have a few minutes left. How would you summarize this study?

Andrea Griffith: I really wanted "Called" to be the indicatives that God has done for us rather than the imperatives what we must now do for God. Because I feel like if you really get those, what God has done, what we do will really flow out of that. But if you just focus on what we have to do for God, I will run myself into the ground.

I’ll throw myself off a cliff for God. I’ll try to be God, not knowing I’m trying to be God, but trying to meet everybody’s needs everywhere. But if I’m living out of, “No, God has called you to grace and to peace and to forgiveness so that you can now forgive, so that you can now overcome that anxiety that we’ve talked a little bit about.” He wants me to have a heart of peace, not a heart of anxiety. So I really wanted to talk about this is what God has called us to, how do we live that out in our everyday life?

Ann Wilson: For 50 years, God has been using FamilyLife to strengthen homes and transform marriages like ours. Imagine what could happen in the next 50 if people like you choose to invest in what God is building.

Dave Wilson: So here’s the challenge: what if your monthly financial support helped save a marriage this year? What if it helped a child grow up knowing Jesus? What if your generosity shaped a family story for generations?

Ann Wilson: Becoming a FamilyLife partner with us does exactly that. And for a limited time, every single monthly gift will be matched for an entire year, doubling your impact.

Dave Wilson: So don’t just celebrate God’s faithfulness over the last 50 years. Help write the next chapter. Become a FamilyLife partner at FamilyLifeToday.com or give us a call at 1-800-FL-TODAY. Now is there a sense of "Called"?

Andrea Griffith: I need to turn that question back to you guys. You guys have been doing this a lot longer than me. I think God really uses just our brokenness. I think God really uses the ways that we have messed up and we’ve had to seek Him out and He’s come in and in His grace He’s healed us.

And so He’s not calling us to live something out that He hasn’t already done in us. And He’s so gracious, He does it in us and then we’re able to say, “Hey, come meet this God who’s changed everything about me. This is who I was and this is what He’s been in the process of doing for me.” I don’t know if that’s what you guys have found or not.

Ann Wilson: When we go to a good movie, we’re on the way home and I’m already texting my friends and kids like, “You guys have to go to this movie!” And I feel like that when I gave my life to Jesus, like, “You guys have to know this God who loves you, sees you, died for you, and has a purpose for your life.” You want to share that with people because it’s transformed us. There’s nothing better for us. It’s such a calling and we’re all called to it.

Andrea Griffith: And even just in your own home with your kids. I mean, we start there because they’re the ones who see us every day and see us saying, “Mom needs God.” They’re the ones who see us praying out loud in the car because if we don’t, we’re going to yell and say things we don’t want to say. And so we’re like, “God, I need You right here, right now, in this moment.”

And just living that out and then passing on to our kids. It’s God that we’re centered on. It’s God who’s chosen us, and so now we get to live this out. Whether that’s inviting them home from sports with you, whatever it is, just creating that space so that we can live out the gospel in front of our kids and they feel safe and free to live it out in front of their friends.

Ann Wilson: I think as moms hear that, you’re instantly convicted. That’s the place I’m not living it out because it’s so hard and we all feel that. We are all failing, we’re all losing our temper, we’re all discouraged, we all feel like we don’t have a life at times. That’s normal. But God’s with you.

I remember my one friend saying, “I just feel like I’m failing every single day.” And she said, “Did you feed your children today?” Like, “Yeah.” “Did your kids get dressed?” “Yeah.” She said, “You’re doing a great job.” And she said, “Did you pray with them ever?” I said, “I did! I prayed with them last night!” And she said, “Wow, look at you, you’re discipling them.” It started so simple. Pray with them, love them, see them, say I love you, and it’s easy to beat ourselves up but it’s an opportunity that God’s given us.

Dave Wilson: Here’s a final question for you two moms. How do you as a mom instill these three concepts in your kids? Chosen, centered, and called. I mean, there’s young moms listening going, “Okay, I want to live this, but man, I’m called to give this to my kids, send them off someday knowing centered, called, and chosen.” Is there a thought that comes to you to say, “Okay, I don’t need a three-step formula, but of all the things, I think don’t forget this,” what would that be?

Andrea Griffith: I just had this conversation with myself the other day because I was feeling so overwhelmed. I had so much I had to do and I felt like I was just failing in all of it. And I just felt like the Lord said, He’s so gracious, I felt like He just said, “Andrea, what’s the bottom line of it?” And I thought about it and just said back to Him, “You told me it’s just to love You and then to love others. To love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then out of that to love others.”

And I think that’s what "Centered" is. It’s how am I loving Him today? And am I loving Him today? I think that’s what "Chosen" is all about, too. It’s how do I get my mind wrapped around what He’s already said, that He’s chosen me, that He loves me? And then how do I give that to other people?

Love God and then love others because if I’m loving Him, that’s going to come out of me. Because I’m not going to be all-centered on myself, I’m going to be able to see them, love them, talk about this God who’s changing me even in the moment because I need Him right now, because I’m overwhelmed. So I have to go back all the time to just what did Jesus say? The two greatest commandments: just to love Him and love others.

Ann Wilson: And He also said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” To me it’s not like, “What am I, here’s my list of discipleship things for my kids.” It’s, “I need to be abiding and connected to the vine.” And if I’m connected to the vine, I’ll bear fruit. I’m not straining and striving to do it. I just need to keep myself abiding and connected to the vine. That’s the desperation part. I can’t do it apart from You, Jesus. I need You desperately. That’s why these tools, Andrea, are so helpful. It helps us to abide in Him, to connect to Him, and just to know Him. And you’ve done more, you have a new one coming out.

Andrea Griffith: I do.

Ann Wilson: And what’s this one called?

Andrea Griffith: It’s called "Front-Row Resilience." I haven’t felt like I’ve been a very resilient person and I feel like life and ministry, you can take a lot of hard knocks. And I’ve needed Jesus to be resilient. The subtitle is "Your Seat on the Front-Row of God's Faithfulness," which just goes back to what you just said.

It’s just abiding. He is faithful. He knows right where we’re living, so He is going to give the grace and the ability to hang in there, be resilient. Whether it’s being a mom, being a pastor’s wife, whatever you’re dealing with right now, He gives the grace to help us keep taking that next step forward.

Dave Wilson: And let me end it this way: moms, I’m looking at you two, and every mom listening or watching, you’re amazing. What you do every single day, just as a husband and a dad watching at least my wife, it’s astounding what you accomplish, what you handle, what you juggle. And I know you look in the mirror and you feel like a failure; you are not a failure. You are making a difference in the world.

I just want to applaud you and say keep going. I know when it’s hard and you don’t feel chosen or centered or called, you want to give up. Don’t give up. Your kids, one day, you look back and say, “I did pretty good.” Because you did. I just want to remind you of that because you forget it all the time and I just stand there and watch and be in awe of what you ladies accomplish. Keep going.

Andrea Griffith: To me, what I watch my friends and women juggle, you are right. Whether it’s taking care of their own kids, taking care of aging parents, juggling a job, being a mom, loving their husband well, I am amazed. My friends run circles around me with all the things that they’re juggling. And you’re right, women can be amazing leaning on the Lord and saying, “God, I can’t do it, I need Your help for all of these plates that I’m spinning today.”

Dave Wilson: And these three studies will help you do it. Just go to FamilyLifeToday.com, click on the link in the show notes, and pick up one of these or all three.

FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry. 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.