FamilyLife Today®

Laura Story: No matter what season you're in, what you're beholding is what you're becoming. The scriptures tell us beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord and being transformed into that same image.

It works with scripture, but it also works with other things. We're all consuming something. We're all beholding something. Whatever it is that we are beholding the most, that is what we're being conformed to. That's what's transforming us.

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

Ann Wilson: And I’m Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave Wilson: Hey, it’s been great having some time off, which is not really time off. The knees are healing, I’m starting to walk, and it’s been relaxing over the last few days.

Ann Wilson: But what’s really even better? Having time off while still listening to all the great guests that are coming on the show.

Dave Wilson: Bingo. I can't wait to hear what Cheryl and Laura Story will be discussing today. Laura is the best.

Ann Wilson: We love her.

Laura Story: I feel like sometimes we've lost the kind of awe in our worship, in our Sunday morning worship. In the book, I talk about four different ways that sometimes we've gone off course. I call them ditches we have to be careful of if reverence is the road.

One would be having a casual approach to God. Another would be a self-focused approach to God. After self-focused, we have shallow. This is a neat one because again, and I talk about this in the book, there were movements over the past 50 years of the church where some leaders saw what was working for their church youth groups and thought we should do this on an adult level.

It sounds like a wonderful idea, except it's basically what you win them with, you win them to. So, as you're winning them into the life of the church through a very shallow message, if it only stays there, we end up with a shallow faith.

You have to ask the question: Why is it important that we go deep in our faith? I'd say two reasons. First of all, the scriptures are worth it. The Lord, when He saves us, gives us this desire to ingest God's word. He gives us minds. Paul says, "Oh, how unsearchable is the knowledge of God." Why would we not want to grow in our knowledge of the Lord?

Secondly, the problems we face in life will get harder. Where as a kid learning "Jesus loves me," I will always hold that close to my heart, but then when my husband's diagnosed with a brain tumor, I need something more than just a "Jesus loves me" theology to understand why a good God would allow such a hard thing to happen to us.

Cheryl: Part of what I hear you saying is that what these ditches are saying to God is that You alone aren't enough. Relationship with You is not enough unless I am satisfied in the way that I deem satisfaction. Is it even worth it to reverence You, to worship You in the way that You say I should worship? How does reverence for God combat these ditches that you're talking about? The self-focus, the casualness, the shallowness of our worship and lifestyle?

Laura Story: I think at the very most basic level, it's saying that God is worthy of our attention. So reverence in the first setting, rather than approaching Him casually, we should approach Him in an awe-inspired way.

As we see who He is, as we truly see how He's revealed Himself in the scriptures, our response should also be falling on our faces. Our response should be Psalm 95: "Come, let us worship and bow down." I don't know the last time you've seen someone bow down in a church service. Not that that has to happen, but are our hearts bowed before Him? Or am I just wandering in with my coffee whenever I happen to get there?

Maybe it's a Sunday that I'm really tired and I'm going to do my livestream in my pajamas. But even bowing, I'm glad that you clarified that it's a heart position because in charismatic circles, there's a lot of bowing and worshipping and physical expression of honor towards God. But even sometimes that can become performative. So reverence also keeps us from the performance of worship and really keeps a heart posture to live bowed before the Lord.

And even the self-focused part of it, the reverence, as one of the people that helps with the music at my church, we do have the conversations every now and then. This will probably shock you: Not everyone loves the music all the time.

Cheryl: Oh, you're kidding me!

Laura Story: I know, it was a crazy thought! But really this idea of reverence, believing that it's all the different types of music. I talk about it as preference and deference. Sometimes we're going to sing a song that's your preference and you're just going to sing it to the rooftops. And then the very next song, you're going to be like, "Oh, why are they doing this?"

I always talk to people: Even if it's not your preference, it's an opportunity for you to revere God by practicing deference. Our older people are like, "Why are we playing this young people music?" and I'm like, "Because the next generation, this is how they're connecting with the Lord and you need to value that."

And the same thing with the young people. They're like, "Why are we playing these old hymns?" and I kind of want to smack them and say, "You mean the one that the guy who built the building requested?" But it's good for our hearts. When we are practicing that deference, ultimately, it's revering the Lord. It's reminding us that we're not the central ones to the story. Anything that reminds us that we are not the main character of our story, that is good for our souls.

The fourth ditch is distraction. It's probably the biggest one these days. I use a few different words. I talk about distraction and I talk about the remedy of that being devotion. But I talk about a very important aspect of devotion being discipline.

Cheryl: When you say devotion, I automatically go to getting up at four or five o'clock in the morning, sitting with my Bible, with some music, with some tea.

Laura Story: Did you say four or five o'clock? I didn't know that four happened twice. I thought it was just that one time in the afternoon.

Cheryl: It happens twice! And I am frustrated at four because I'm waiting for the world to wake up. I'm like, "Why aren't you up? Let's go. Here's the day. Come on, let's go." But it really is an amazing time of peace for me because the world isn't stirring and the phone isn't ringing and all of those things. So that's what I have in my mind when you say devotion. That's the immediate thought. But I know you're talking about something deeper than that.

Laura Story: But that's also a big part of it. We live in a world where the devices—electronic devices or any other devices—are vying for our attention in a more ruthless way than I think we have ever experienced.

Cheryl: Can I tell you something really funny? I was going to take Spanish via Duolingo. I skipped one day and then I skipped two days. I have been getting emails and I'm going to show you this little bot. It's passive aggressive. I said I'm going to take a PPO out on this thing because I am getting messages like, "Cheryl, I know you're over it," then the next day, "Please come back." It's so invasive in our lives. And it's not even asking for permission anymore. It's just coming at us.

Laura Story: Even you look at the statistics of how much people spend on their phones because that's the one that probably is the worst. It's not necessarily a choice that they're making. They're just not making a choice to not. And these devices are drawing our attention in.

And the Lord, I don't know, for me, I wonder whether He's sitting to the side and saying, "Hey, I'm not going to compete with this. I'm not going to get in your face. I know that you're asking me to show up immediately," the same way technology does. We get to hear from it immediately. We get to know things immediately. The Lord's like, "No, I'm not an Amazon package that's going to show up within 12 hours at your doorstep."

What the scriptures tell us is about learning to wait on the Lord. Our souls need that. So, I think that what you were talking about, the time with the Lord in the morning, that's a big part of it. Having those spiritual disciplines is just as helpful today, if not more helpful, because we live in a much more distracted world. We need to show the discipline of really pouring ourselves into the things that we care about most. If you were to take an audit of my time, that would be so scary. But if you were to take an audit of my time for a week and then showed me what I had spent my time on, I wonder if I would say, "Oh, yeah, those are the things I care the most about."

Dave Wilson: I don't know if this is true for you, but it's super easy for us to let our schedules squeeze in everything except for the person I married.

Ann Wilson: Oh, yeah. Work, kids, everything competing for our attention. And before you know it, your marriage has slipped into autopilot. You don't always notice you're drifting apart until it's already happened.

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Cheryl: I think it's important for moms of young children to understand that we do live life in seasons. So you might not be in a season where you can get up at four or five in the morning. But you can maybe take five minutes in the bathroom and close the door and say, "Everybody leave Mommy alone."

Or you, on a commute to work. That's what I used to do when I was driving to work. I would turn the radio off, I would turn the air off and raise the windows or the heat on, depending—it is Detroit—and just spend that time with the Lord in prayer and worship. Talking, listening, reciting, meditating on scripture.

So the Lord does understand the rhythms of the life that He has placed us in, the family that He has set us in. I think that part of worshipping Him and reverencing Him is going to Him with that and saying, "This is my life, Lord. Help me to carve out time. Show me where we can meet because I know it's important to You and it's important to me and I want to prioritize You. So help me do that."

Laura Story: It's going to look different in different seasons of life. I remember as a mom with littles, and I remember trying to do the same kind of Bible studies that I did in college when I was single and didn't have children. I had to fill in 57 blanks and I always felt so embarrassed. I'm showing up to these Bible studies without my blanks filled in. I call it the empty blank shame.

It's finding something that works for you. But the truth is, no matter what season you're in, what you're beholding is what you're becoming. The scriptures tell us beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord and being transformed into that same image. It works with scripture, but it also works with other things.

I think of people who listen to news 24/7 and you find that they end up being the most anxious people. Anxious, bitter. I actually had to turn the news off. I don't watch it much anymore. So just remembering that we're all consuming something. We're all beholding something. Just remember whatever it is that we are beholding the most, that is what we're being conformed to. That's what's transforming us.

We are finite beings who are subject to limitation. When we are tired, we need to sleep. When we are hungry, we need food. When we feel lonely, we need time with others. As we accept and submit to the natural confines of our bodies, we realize that God gives us limitations not to suppress us, but for our good. Refusing to submit to how He designed us to live will run us into the ground.

Some of these things, especially the distraction part, I think is a refusal to submit to how He designed us. He designed us for rest. He designed us for time with Him. He designed us to not live distracted, to not live self-focused. When we can't see past the end of our noses, we miss so much of life and so much of other people. He designed us to not live shallowly, but to live deeply so that we can live satisfied. He designed us in these ways to avoid these ditches.

Cheryl: What are some practical things that we can do to circumvent those things that you talked about?

Laura Story: I’ll circle back to Sunday because I'm always thinking about Sunday. You're the worship leader, Sunday is always coming. I think part of what you were saying about the habit of spending time in God's word. There's nothing special about the morning hours. For me, it's morning also. It's not as early as you get up.

But something about the morning, in the same way that I probably wouldn't walk out the door without ever looking in the mirror at myself in the morning, I hate whenever I have to walk out the door without taking a look at my spiritual self as well. When we go to God's word, specifically in the mornings, but it really could be anytime, I'm reminded of who I am.

Meaning that I don't walk into my first meeting of the day starved for attention and identity from the things I'm about to achieve or not achieve. I'm reminded who I am. I'm reminded who God is and the fact that He is both worthy of my best work, as well as the fact that Jesus has achieved my security and significance upon the cross.

Because of what Christ has done, God looks at me and says, "This is my beloved child in whom I'm well pleased." I can walk out the door and I just face life differently. I'm reminded of the world that He's called me to be salt and light to. I'm reminded of the children that I am called to love, not strangle.

One way to revere God really is just that time in His word. There's so many other things I could say. I'll talk a little bit about Sunday. It's choosing churches that seek to grow us in reverence. If you're walking into a church and they are making you the focal point of your spiritual life, that is probably not a good thing for you or for the church.

Cheryl: That came out of your mouth so easily. But as somebody that is looking for a new church home right now, that is not easy to do. How do you even begin to ascertain? You can't do that on one service. You go back and back and you're like, "Okay, there seems to be a theme here and the theme isn't Jesus." So how do you even begin to do something like that?

Laura Story: I'll tell you about my friend Jeannie. She and I were working together at the church when her husband Mark was diagnosed with cancer. Mark ended up going on about a year later to be with the Lord. It was sweet to see her love him so well during that.

I remember going to her at some point and saying, "We want to know what we can do. Can we bring meals? Can we help with kids' rides? What can we do?" What she said to me was, "Laura, you're already doing it." She said, "You are choosing songs week after week that talk about God's goodness in the midst of suffering, that point our eyes to God's kingdom which is longer lasting than what we have here in this earth."

We're not the kind of church that says we're never going to sing this person's song. We get songs from wherever, but we really want our songs to be consistent with the teachings of the scripture. Even in the proportions that the scriptures speak about different things. For instance, we're not going to always talk about suffering. But because we do believe that God is a miracle worker, and we believe that He can heal my husband's brain injury with the snap of a finger.

He has not done that yet. And so I love singing songs about the miracle that I am believing God for. But if that's the only thing we're singing, am I truly reverencing God in a way that leaves that decision up to Him? Because that really is what faith is. It's not believing God for what you want. It is believing God, point blank and period.

One thing that we do at our church: Every opening song is about the Lord, who He is and what He's done. I know that sounds obvious, but I've gone into a church before and our opening song was "I'm going to sing, I'm going to praise, I'm going to do this and that," which is nothing wrong with that, but it's a response. We need to begin with what God has done, and then we can respond as His people who will praise Him either way, whether He parts the Red Sea for me today or not. I'm going to praise Him either way.

Cheryl: What I hear you saying is that some of the workaround to avoid these ditches is really just saying to God that You're good, I believe it, and no matter what happens in my life, that has to remain sacrosanct. I always say it like this in my mind: God is exceedingly holy and He's infinitely good, and that doesn't change. Amen. It doesn't change, period. And if I can begin from that standpoint, then we can go from there.

I had a doctor's appointment a few months ago and my doctor and I had a come-to-Jesus moment. She's like, "Okay, girl, this is what you're going to have to do because you want to be healthy for these things." So I took out a Sharpie and a sticky note and I wrote on there, "What would a healthy woman do?" and I put it on my mirror in the bathroom.

Every day as I'm walking out, I'm like, "Oh, okay, what am I going to do today as a healthy woman?" I think something very practical that people can do is: What would a reverent person do? What would a worshipping person do? What would someone who wants to honor God today do? Just stick it on your bathroom mirror and that's the last thing you see when you walk out of your bathroom.

It's a reminder that you are living as a forgiven, grace-empowered, beloved, chosen, holy child of God of a Father who is holy, worthy of praise, worthy of attention, worthy of devotion. I think that is one very practical thing that someone could do.

Laura Story: Oh, I love that. I’m going to do that! You mentioned a couple of times your family story. How does reverencing God inform the way you love and support and just be a wife to your husband through his circumstances?

When I meet with women or men who are walking through something hard that it doesn't seem like God is going to fix this side of heaven, people ask me all the time, "So do you not pray for Martin's healing anymore?" and I'm like, "Absolutely I pray for his healing. I just trust that God knows better than I do."

I think that's a big part of reverence is saying, like the prayer of Jesus in the garden, "If you can let this cup pass from me, let's do it. But nevertheless, not my will but yours be done." Those seven words really sum up reverence: Not my will but Yours be done.

Dave Wilson: Boy, what a great discussion and this is just the beginning.

Ann Wilson: And I can't wait for tomorrow because Cheryl's going to have a discussion with Laura Story and we'll continue on this topic.

Dave Wilson: In the meantime, check out the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com for links to all the resources discussed in today's episode.

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