Everyday Educator - Simply Advent : Pray Together
00:00:00.000 | (soft music)
00:00:02.420 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:06.400 | of the Everyday Educator podcast.
00:00:09.280 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:11.040 | and I am excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:14.640 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:18.120 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:21.040 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:24.380 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:26.280 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:28.400 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:32.340 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:36.200 | But don't forget,
00:00:37.600 | although this online community is awesome,
00:00:41.120 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:46.120 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:49.620 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:53.720 | Well, listeners, I can hardly believe that it's advent.
00:00:57.080 | I feel like this year has been a rushing rollercoaster
00:01:02.080 | and I am shocked to look up and discover
00:01:06.280 | that this is our first week of advent.
00:01:08.740 | I have a suggestion for your family,
00:01:14.280 | for all of our families this Christmas.
00:01:17.980 | What if we intentionally spent time together
00:01:26.120 | doing the simplest things?
00:01:29.720 | What if we practiced simple habits
00:01:33.760 | designed to draw us to one another
00:01:37.120 | and to start meaningful conversations
00:01:40.300 | and to provoke us to deeper thinking
00:01:43.120 | and to encourage us toward true worship?
00:01:47.560 | What if, what if in this season of busy
00:01:54.520 | we celebrated Christmas by praying together,
00:01:59.520 | playing together, reading together,
00:02:04.640 | exploring together and serving together.
00:02:09.640 | This advent season, the everyday educator
00:02:14.400 | wants to practice these scribblers habits along with you.
00:02:19.400 | And we're going to talk with others
00:02:22.200 | who want to try this plan too.
00:02:24.400 | So you can listen in every Tuesday of the advent season
00:02:29.400 | to ponder the next habit.
00:02:32.680 | And today we are going to think about praying together
00:02:37.680 | and I have my friend Karen Carpenter
00:02:42.320 | along for this ride and this conversation.
00:02:45.780 | Karen, thanks for joining me.
00:02:48.320 | - Oh, it's my pleasure.
00:02:50.040 | - I am excited.
00:02:50.880 | Now I personally love Christmas.
00:02:53.380 | Are you a Christmas lover, Karen?
00:02:55.520 | - Absolutely.
00:02:56.940 | - I love Christmas and my family has always loved Christmas
00:03:00.080 | and we get into almost everything.
00:03:02.240 | We love the decorating and the baking and the caroling.
00:03:07.240 | We love Christmas cookies.
00:03:09.720 | We love Christmas parties.
00:03:11.100 | I like Christmas movies and we can get really busy.
00:03:16.100 | My husband's a pastor.
00:03:18.280 | And so Christmas season is busy season at our house
00:03:22.800 | and has been for years and years and years.
00:03:26.900 | And there are years when I think it's just too much.
00:03:31.640 | Too much of a good thing is not too good.
00:03:34.660 | It's just too much.
00:03:36.320 | It's still too much.
00:03:37.500 | And I was pondering ways for our family
00:03:42.500 | to enjoy the deep celebration of the season
00:03:48.380 | without participating in all the frenzy.
00:03:52.800 | And so I want us to look at how we can celebrate Christmas
00:03:57.800 | this year in simpler ways.
00:04:00.460 | And so Karen, thank you for coming on
00:04:02.960 | and helping me think about praying together.
00:04:07.780 | I wanna ask you, I know that you homeschooled your children
00:04:12.740 | and you don't have any that you're currently homeschooling.
00:04:15.740 | You don't have any kids at home now, right?
00:04:18.100 | - Correct.
00:04:19.380 | - But I wanna ask you about this.
00:04:21.660 | Did your family have a regular prayer time together,
00:04:28.400 | apart from saying blessing at mealtime
00:04:32.940 | and prayers at bedtime?
00:04:34.940 | Did your family have a regular prayer time otherwise?
00:04:39.060 | - I think that we generally use
00:04:41.460 | what is now called morning time.
00:04:43.740 | We did not have that phrase when I was homeschooling,
00:04:46.900 | but that was generally when we would
00:04:49.260 | either be reading a book together with spiritual content
00:04:53.340 | or we'd be reading through parts of the Bible
00:04:56.360 | or sometimes we'd even be using the hymnal
00:04:58.700 | and that would be a time when we would pray together.
00:05:03.120 | - Yeah, yeah.
00:05:04.660 | So did you intentionally pray?
00:05:06.420 | I'm thinking, we did the same thing.
00:05:07.980 | Yeah, you and I homeschooled
00:05:09.480 | before the morning basket time was a thing.
00:05:13.380 | But we started our day together, reading scripture together,
00:05:18.220 | memorizing scripture together, lots of years,
00:05:21.220 | and like you said, reading a book or a hymn
00:05:23.820 | and thinking about the Lord.
00:05:25.740 | But then we had a specific prayer time,
00:05:28.260 | and even when I was a challenge director,
00:05:31.560 | we tended to do this.
00:05:32.820 | We had a morning prayer time where I asked my children,
00:05:37.120 | my own children and my challenged children,
00:05:43.940 | who they wanted to lift to the throne together.
00:05:47.580 | So we had a time that we prayed for other people.
00:05:52.500 | Did you guys have a season of prayer for things,
00:05:57.340 | people that were outside your family?
00:06:00.300 | - Yes, and as a challenge director, we also did that.
00:06:03.580 | We had, that was first thing in the morning.
00:06:05.300 | We would spend some time in prayer.
00:06:07.900 | And really, I felt like part of my job
00:06:10.340 | as their challenge director was to train them
00:06:12.620 | to think about how prayer works a little bit.
00:06:16.180 | Sometimes prayer time kind of became an announcement time.
00:06:20.300 | I saw a rag, or this is happening or whatever.
00:06:23.140 | And so training them to say, okay,
00:06:25.500 | how would you like to pray about that?
00:06:27.280 | What do you want to bring to the Lord
00:06:29.480 | about that thing that you just told me?
00:06:31.780 | To just kind of train them to think
00:06:33.700 | about things a little differently.
00:06:35.780 | - That's lovely.
00:06:37.680 | That's lovely, Karen, what a gift.
00:06:41.040 | What a gift of training.
00:06:43.260 | And I think, I'm sure that your students
00:06:46.560 | were blessed by that habit that you inculcated
00:06:51.560 | in them of thinking about how am I asking God
00:06:56.360 | to be involved in this situation or in this problem?
00:07:00.000 | That's really good.
00:07:01.780 | Did you, in your challenge group
00:07:04.200 | or in your home prayer time with your own kids,
00:07:07.560 | did you, was it the same every day or every season?
00:07:11.160 | Or did you ever do anything differently during Advent?
00:07:15.160 | Did you have special prayers
00:07:16.780 | that y'all prayed during Advent?
00:07:19.340 | - Well, with my own kids at home,
00:07:21.100 | we used the Jesse tree for several years.
00:07:23.620 | - Oh, yes!
00:07:25.020 | - And so what I wanted the prayers to be
00:07:28.300 | coming right out of Thanksgiving season,
00:07:30.220 | 'cause the season of Advent starts right
00:07:34.480 | on the tail of Thanksgiving.
00:07:36.140 | So we had just been thinking through
00:07:38.120 | what to be thankful for.
00:07:39.460 | And in general, a lot of the things
00:07:41.260 | that we were thankful for during the Thanksgiving season
00:07:43.980 | were blessings that we had received,
00:07:46.860 | sometimes materially, sometimes relationally.
00:07:50.640 | But what we did with our Jesse tree
00:07:53.920 | was we would look at each of the ornaments,
00:07:56.240 | talk about the root that sprung from Jesse's tree
00:08:00.180 | and that it was for different people.
00:08:02.340 | It was for the Gentiles.
00:08:03.500 | And how can that make us thankful?
00:08:05.300 | And why is that so important to you and me today?
00:08:08.380 | And what would be different if that weren't true?
00:08:10.260 | And then we would pray about how we feel so blessed
00:08:14.780 | as a result of each of these things,
00:08:16.500 | whether it's Joseph's coat
00:08:17.940 | or whether it's the creation of the world,
00:08:20.360 | which is one of them.
00:08:21.680 | We can get lost in, of course we're thankful for the Lord
00:08:25.040 | and we're thankful for the world,
00:08:27.100 | but what are we thankful about this world?
00:08:30.060 | And when they were younger, it was very simple.
00:08:32.780 | It would be things like what do you look outside today
00:08:36.100 | and are thankful for?
00:08:37.820 | But as the children aged
00:08:39.640 | and as their spiritual understanding was bigger,
00:08:43.620 | some of their prayers were really meaningful to my heart
00:08:46.460 | when I would listen.
00:08:48.020 | - That's neat.
00:08:48.860 | I love it that you brought up the fact
00:08:52.100 | that we as grownups can have our hearts softened
00:08:58.420 | and our gaze directed by the prayers of our children.
00:09:02.880 | And it's really true that each of our children is a soul.
00:09:10.420 | Each of our children is a soul
00:09:13.180 | that has been created by the Lord
00:09:15.500 | and they have a different perspective
00:09:18.020 | and they can sometimes help us to see truths
00:09:22.100 | that maybe our personalities are not as quick to recognize
00:09:27.100 | as quick to recognize.
00:09:29.380 | I think that's beautiful.
00:09:31.140 | So if you were, 'cause we're talking
00:09:35.180 | about the scribblers habits of praying together,
00:09:40.180 | playing together, exploring together and so on.
00:09:43.900 | We're talking about those habits and using those habits
00:09:47.620 | as a way to simplify our celebration of Christmas.
00:09:52.060 | If you were gonna pray about celebrating Christmas,
00:09:57.620 | 'cause like we've got listeners who are thinking,
00:09:59.480 | well, that's really cool, but how would I do that?
00:10:02.260 | So help us think, Karen, if you were gonna pray
00:10:05.740 | about celebrating Christmas, what would you pray?
00:10:10.620 | - I think for myself, I can get not tied up necessarily
00:10:15.620 | in the material aspects of Christmas,
00:10:21.460 | but the creating of memories of Christmas
00:10:23.700 | can become a very heavy load and making sure
00:10:28.140 | it's just like last year or exactly what my kids expected
00:10:31.300 | or that I thought through all the things
00:10:32.880 | that there's a sense in which a lot
00:10:35.040 | of the Christmas traditions which are so beautiful
00:10:38.180 | can become bondage.
00:10:40.180 | And so I often pray during this time,
00:10:44.540 | especially now that I don't have kids at home,
00:10:47.020 | that I don't put too much importance
00:10:50.580 | on the traditions and the celebration,
00:10:54.500 | but instead I keep going back to the meaning for this season
00:10:58.020 | and that I put my importance and my efforts
00:11:01.040 | on things that would glorify the Lord.
00:11:03.980 | And I think sometimes Pinterest does not glorify the Lord.
00:11:08.980 | That's where I want to head.
00:11:12.140 | I want it to look like a little Hallmark commercial.
00:11:14.780 | - That is so not restful for most of us, isn't it?
00:11:19.080 | - Right.
00:11:20.380 | I remember one year, my kids were teenagers
00:11:22.980 | and we were gonna go traveling
00:11:25.520 | and we had a Christmas tree that the kids put up
00:11:30.520 | and they were real grumbly.
00:11:34.220 | It was just a year that we were,
00:11:35.540 | they did not want to travel.
00:11:37.140 | They wanted to stay home for Christmas,
00:11:38.380 | but we were going to see grandparents
00:11:40.180 | and we had a naked tree standing in our living room
00:11:43.700 | for about three days.
00:11:45.180 | And then I had a meltdown and just said,
00:11:47.640 | "We have to get the," and I made a huge, huge deal of it.
00:11:50.300 | It really was not at all godly in my response to this.
00:11:54.740 | And I remember afterwards that they grudgingly
00:11:57.060 | put all the lights on and put all the ornaments on.
00:11:58.980 | And I remember afterwards thinking,
00:12:00.340 | "Wouldn't it have been better for me to make a memory
00:12:02.380 | "of remember the year that we had a naked Christmas tree,
00:12:05.920 | "but were peaceful."
00:12:07.400 | - Oh, wow.
00:12:09.440 | - And that was, I go back to that very often in my heart
00:12:13.120 | and say, "You know what?
00:12:14.600 | "My view of what a perfect Christmas day is
00:12:18.500 | "or a Christmas tradition is needs to totally be bathed
00:12:21.680 | "in prayer and given to the Lord as a worship."
00:12:26.060 | And I think it would have been more worshipful
00:12:27.940 | to the Lord to have a naked Christmas tree that year.
00:12:30.820 | - You know what?
00:12:31.740 | That is so, so wise.
00:12:34.620 | I think you're really right.
00:12:35.980 | We, as moms, and dads too to some extent,
00:12:40.980 | get so focused on creating these perfect vignette experiences
00:12:46.780 | for our children, thinking that's what they're gonna remember.
00:12:51.780 | - Absolutely.
00:12:54.880 | - But you know what I have discovered?
00:12:57.520 | My kids sometimes do not remember the hallmark moment,
00:13:02.520 | the picture, because what they remember is the feeling
00:13:07.920 | or the stress that went into producing that moment.
00:13:13.060 | And they remember the oddest, to me, the oddest things
00:13:18.060 | because they were not, many times the stuff
00:13:23.320 | that my kids remember, I didn't spend any effort
00:13:27.900 | that I noticed on.
00:13:29.620 | I did not orchestrate that at all.
00:13:32.420 | This moment that they remember or this event
00:13:36.980 | that they remember or this feeling that they remember
00:13:41.200 | was organic, it came from, like what you have said,
00:13:44.820 | when we were all happy together, when there was peace
00:13:47.540 | in our home, or when we just embraced some funny,
00:13:52.020 | semi-tragic thing, I mean tragic in my perfectionistic mind.
00:13:57.020 | You know, we just embraced the silly.
00:14:00.540 | The year that the lights on our Christmas tree died,
00:14:04.740 | one strand at a time just infuriated me.
00:14:09.920 | But eventually we just had to laugh.
00:14:12.020 | And that is a memory that our family has.
00:14:14.460 | And really, the memory is how crazy it made Mama
00:14:19.460 | and then that she was able finally to laugh at it.
00:14:22.740 | That's a better memory.
00:14:24.780 | I like your idea about praying for our attitudes
00:14:29.780 | and praying for our celebrations and pursuing,
00:14:34.500 | I guess what you're saying, Karen, is that we are pursuing
00:14:37.540 | the traditions or pursuing the memories
00:14:40.800 | for the right reasons.
00:14:42.480 | - Yes, because if it were my two year old's birthday
00:14:47.460 | that I was celebrating, I would be focused
00:14:49.720 | on my two year old.
00:14:50.800 | And since it's Christ's birthday that I'm celebrating,
00:14:53.300 | I need to really work on being focused on Christ
00:14:56.760 | and not on my family.
00:14:58.380 | And that is hard.
00:14:59.460 | - Oh wow, I'm writing that down.
00:15:03.260 | - Focusing on Christ's birthday, not our family
00:15:08.260 | or our family moments or memories or, that is great.
00:15:14.180 | And you know what, I think that's something
00:15:15.680 | that we're all gonna have to pray about.
00:15:17.100 | 'Cause that does not, first, it's sad,
00:15:21.140 | but that's not maybe natural.
00:15:23.260 | That's not the first thing.
00:15:24.640 | And when we live in the world where Christmas is so glitzy
00:15:31.420 | and jolly and loud and stuff oriented,
00:15:36.420 | it is difficult to keep things simple.
00:15:43.100 | Well, I would love for us to read one of the most famous
00:15:48.980 | Christmas prayers.
00:15:53.260 | It's in Luke and it's commonly known as the Magnificat.
00:15:59.420 | It's the prayer that Mary prayed
00:16:03.280 | after the angel Gabriel visited her.
00:16:07.820 | And in Latin, it means my soul magnifies the Lord.
00:16:12.820 | All right, so we're gonna start in verse 26.
00:16:17.820 | So it's Luke chapter one.
00:16:20.840 | We're gonna start in verse 26, which is before her prayer,
00:16:26.340 | but it kind of sets up the prayer, okay?
00:16:29.860 | So here we go, Luke chapter one, verse 26.
00:16:34.860 | And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God
00:16:41.460 | unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth
00:16:46.940 | to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph
00:16:51.900 | of the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary.
00:16:56.260 | And the angel came into her and said,
00:16:59.780 | "Hail, thou that art highly favored,
00:17:03.860 | "the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women."
00:17:08.860 | And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying
00:17:15.300 | and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
00:17:19.300 | this should be.
00:17:20.900 | And the angel said unto her, "Fear not, Mary,
00:17:24.220 | "for thou hast found favor with God.
00:17:28.320 | "And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb
00:17:33.080 | "and bring forth a son and shalt call his name Jesus.
00:17:38.080 | "He shall be great and shall be called
00:17:44.140 | "the son of the highest and the Lord God
00:17:47.420 | "shall give unto him the throne of his father David.
00:17:53.020 | "And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever
00:17:57.580 | "and of his kingdom there shall be no end."
00:18:01.760 | Then said Mary unto the angel,
00:18:06.200 | "How shall this be seeing I know not a man?"
00:18:11.200 | And the angel answered her and said unto her,
00:18:15.380 | "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee
00:18:18.440 | "and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee.
00:18:22.260 | "Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee
00:18:27.260 | "shall be called the son of God.
00:18:31.540 | "And behold thy cousin Elizabeth,
00:18:33.740 | "she hath also conceived a son in her old age
00:18:37.220 | "and this is the sixth month with her
00:18:40.060 | "who was called barren.
00:18:41.560 | "For with God nothing shall be impossible."
00:18:47.580 | And Mary said, "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord,
00:18:52.580 | "be it unto me according to thy word."
00:18:56.260 | And the angel departed from her.
00:18:59.100 | And Mary rose in those days
00:19:02.020 | and went into the hill country with haste
00:19:03.980 | into a city of Judah and entered into the house of Zacharias
00:19:08.340 | who saluted and saluted Elizabeth.
00:19:12.300 | And it came to pass that when Elizabeth
00:19:14.380 | heard the salutation of Mary,
00:19:17.020 | the babe leaped in her womb
00:19:18.940 | and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.
00:19:21.940 | And she spake out in a loud voice and said,
00:19:24.600 | "Blessed art thou among women
00:19:26.820 | "and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
00:19:31.240 | "And whence is this to me
00:19:32.760 | "that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
00:19:36.340 | "For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation
00:19:39.700 | "sounded in mine ears,
00:19:41.880 | "the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
00:19:45.920 | "And blessed is she that believed
00:19:48.740 | "for there shall be performance of those things
00:19:51.740 | "which were told her from the Lord."
00:19:55.620 | Now here's the Magnificat starting in verse 46.
00:19:58.660 | And Mary said, "My soul doth magnify the Lord
00:20:03.660 | "and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior
00:20:09.820 | "for he hath regarded the lowest state of his handmaiden
00:20:14.600 | "for behold from henceforth all generations
00:20:19.080 | "shall call me blessed.
00:20:21.200 | "For he that is mighty hath done to me great things
00:20:26.200 | "and holy is his name.
00:20:29.660 | "And his mercy is on them that fear him
00:20:32.960 | "from generation to generation.
00:20:35.160 | "He hath showed strength with his arm.
00:20:38.540 | "He hath scattered the proud
00:20:40.920 | "in the imagination of their hearts.
00:20:43.640 | "He hath put down the mighty from their seats
00:20:46.560 | "and exalted them of low degree.
00:20:49.940 | "He hath filled the hungry with good things
00:20:54.020 | "and the rich he hath sent away empty.
00:20:57.320 | "He hath helped his servant Israel
00:21:00.160 | "in remembrance of his mercy.
00:21:03.300 | "And he spake to our fathers to Abraham
00:21:07.220 | "and to his seed forever."
00:21:10.720 | So that's Mary's reaction to the angel coming
00:21:15.620 | to tell her this most unexpected
00:21:19.840 | and frankly outlandish tale, okay?
00:21:23.200 | So let me ask you, Karen,
00:21:24.680 | do you think that you would have reacted like Mary?
00:21:29.680 | - Don't we all wish we would have?
00:21:32.720 | - Yes, yes.
00:21:34.020 | I was hoping that you would be honest and say,
00:21:35.900 | well, I wish I did.
00:21:37.220 | I wish I would have.
00:21:38.480 | I can't imagine how she was able to.
00:21:41.340 | - And as young as she was, we know,
00:21:44.180 | I think of, there's a part of me that thinks
00:21:46.760 | of what an amazing person Mary's mother must have been
00:21:50.140 | to have raised this young lady to accept God's will
00:21:54.680 | that is so outside her comfort zone and so amazing.
00:21:59.680 | And well, it's basically a miracle
00:22:04.760 | and she just steps into the miracle
00:22:07.320 | and says, glorify it, magnify the Lord with my body.
00:22:10.800 | - Right, it's amazing to me.
00:22:15.120 | Absolutely amazing to me that she had that maturity.
00:22:20.120 | So you gave us a little bit,
00:22:22.680 | you think that she was able to react that way
00:22:24.960 | because of the teaching of her mother.
00:22:27.000 | Anything else?
00:22:30.360 | - I know that there was certainly a culture
00:22:34.840 | that so many of the young women were named Mary
00:22:38.200 | in anticipation of the coming of the Christ.
00:22:41.240 | That was a hope that every mom hoped their daughter
00:22:44.800 | would be the answer to that prayer.
00:22:48.160 | And so I'm sure that that part of being that culture,
00:22:52.520 | but honestly, how can you think it was you?
00:22:54.940 | We all thought that was gonna happen,
00:22:58.140 | but not to me, a little--
00:22:59.680 | - Right, and it had been so long since the prophecies
00:23:04.960 | that they had been hearing that for so long and waiting.
00:23:09.040 | - And I have to think that in the same way
00:23:12.880 | that the Lord prepared Elizabeth's heart
00:23:15.800 | for Mary's coming with the Holy Spirit,
00:23:19.040 | the Lord must have prepared Mary's heart
00:23:20.900 | for this information because it doesn't make any sense
00:23:25.280 | for her to go from gathering water and food for her family
00:23:30.280 | and just being a young, engaged woman
00:23:33.200 | to sure, why not, I'll get pregnant and have the Messiah.
00:23:36.640 | That doesn't make any sense.
00:23:38.320 | - Right, well, and in this culture,
00:23:40.680 | so she's not married, she's not married.
00:23:43.860 | And so here is an angel, a heavenly being,
00:23:47.240 | telling her that she's gonna have a baby.
00:23:49.960 | And she's like, that's not actually possible.
00:23:53.120 | Physically, that's not gonna happen.
00:23:55.500 | And then when the angel says, the Holy Spirit
00:23:58.400 | is gonna do this amazing thing,
00:24:01.280 | she just says, okay, I thank you.
00:24:06.280 | I will do what you ask.
00:24:10.960 | - I do think that probably her time spent
00:24:13.120 | with Elizabeth in Zechariah was a time spent in scripture.
00:24:16.680 | And they are both priests and knew the word,
00:24:19.400 | from a priestly family, and knew the word.
00:24:21.440 | And so I can just imagine them pouring over
00:24:25.120 | what do we know about the Messiah?
00:24:26.400 | Just all the verses, pulling out Isaiah
00:24:28.840 | and pulling out all the different times
00:24:31.400 | or things that they knew about the Messiah
00:24:33.000 | and trying to prepare Mary for what was going on.
00:24:36.840 | She didn't just go to hear Elizabeth's prayer.
00:24:40.680 | I think the Lord really sent her to Elizabeth
00:24:42.640 | to be steeped in what was coming for her.
00:24:46.240 | - That's great, that's a really good insight.
00:24:49.700 | How would you describe her response to the message?
00:24:57.200 | I mean, she doesn't sound like she's shocked,
00:25:00.440 | although I would imagine she would have to be shocked.
00:25:04.300 | - Right, well there certainly is a big time difference
00:25:08.040 | between her meeting with the angel
00:25:09.920 | and then having this prayer.
00:25:11.140 | So there was some conflation going on there.
00:25:13.880 | - Right, right, right, right.
00:25:15.640 | - And we didn't hear the rest of her conversation.
00:25:19.680 | Certainly some of the things she might have said
00:25:21.680 | to Elizabeth probably didn't sound like this.
00:25:24.960 | But she does resolve her heart
00:25:28.480 | to do what the Lord asks of her.
00:25:30.620 | And I think she has to know
00:25:35.160 | this is gonna be a really hard journey.
00:25:37.160 | But I think that that's usually when we are closest
00:25:40.640 | to the Lord is during a really hard journey.
00:25:43.080 | - And I imagine that she in many ways did not know,
00:25:49.240 | she knew it would be hard
00:25:51.120 | because it was gonna start out hard.
00:25:52.920 | There was gonna be stigma attached
00:25:55.280 | to her carrying a child before she was married.
00:25:58.300 | So it's gonna be hard.
00:26:00.200 | But I think that she probably did not know
00:26:04.300 | how hard it would be to watch him die
00:26:08.840 | when she was thinking about him being born.
00:26:11.280 | And I think, so often I think,
00:26:13.720 | Lord, thank you that you have not shown me the future
00:26:20.360 | before I'm prepared for it.
00:26:23.020 | And so in many ways, I think that it was a blessing
00:26:26.760 | that she didn't know everything.
00:26:30.200 | I think that her response to the message
00:26:33.900 | was pretty amazingly accepting of whatever it was.
00:26:38.900 | It's kind of like the anything else clause
00:26:44.080 | a lot of people feel like they have with their job.
00:26:46.560 | And so I'm saying yes to this.
00:26:49.480 | And I don't know exactly what it means
00:26:53.140 | or what it will look like, but I accept it.
00:26:56.700 | - I love the fact that after this time with Elizabeth,
00:27:01.440 | when she does pray this prayer, she is not meek.
00:27:05.920 | This is not a prayer of somebody who's like,
00:27:10.200 | oh, downtrodden and whatever you want.
00:27:12.440 | She really is very passionate and resolute in this prayer.
00:27:17.400 | And she recites from generation to generation
00:27:21.520 | and all the good things she's seen the Lord do.
00:27:24.240 | And he spake to her father's Abraham.
00:27:25.800 | She just recites what she knows to be true
00:27:28.640 | of the God of the Israelites.
00:27:31.440 | And so she is resolute.
00:27:34.900 | And I'm sure she had to go back to this prayer herself
00:27:37.720 | over and over again to continue to be resolute,
00:27:40.880 | not just in the time that she was pregnant and giving birth,
00:27:44.320 | but in all the years of raising Jesus.
00:27:46.960 | And then letting him go.
00:27:48.780 | - Yes.
00:27:51.680 | I love that.
00:27:52.800 | That is so good.
00:27:53.680 | And that is one of the things I want for us to think about
00:27:58.460 | as we think about praying together
00:28:02.220 | as a way to celebrate Advent simply.
00:28:07.220 | The, her prayer shows us that she is remembering
00:28:16.120 | who God is and who he has been to her people
00:28:21.120 | throughout the ages.
00:28:25.280 | And I think that prayer can do that for our family
00:28:28.660 | when we stop and we pray, not just for the situations
00:28:33.660 | or the people that leap to mind,
00:28:38.000 | but when we pray prayers of adoration,
00:28:40.800 | looking at who God is and what he's done for us,
00:28:45.700 | how he has acted with such faithfulness and patience
00:28:50.700 | and mercy in the past, I think it really softens our heart,
00:28:56.120 | our hearts for the celebration of Advent.
00:29:00.960 | What do you think, what would you say
00:29:07.400 | is the main message of Mary's prayer?
00:29:12.400 | - I feel like it comes down to the power
00:29:14.600 | and goodness of God is that time and time again,
00:29:19.600 | God has shown his strength with his arm.
00:29:23.380 | He has put down the mighty, he has filled the hungry,
00:29:25.840 | he has helped his servant Israel,
00:29:28.200 | all these things he's done, not because of human people,
00:29:33.200 | but because of who God was.
00:29:35.040 | For generation to generation, he has been faithful.
00:29:38.900 | I was reading a quote by Deirdre Bonhoeffer
00:29:41.760 | about Mary's Magnificat, and he says,
00:29:46.040 | "This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic,
00:29:48.300 | "or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols.
00:29:51.300 | "It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song
00:29:55.120 | "about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind."
00:29:59.120 | - That is so good.
00:30:01.320 | What if your family prayed prayers together
00:30:08.120 | as you prepared for Advent, designed to remind you,
00:30:13.120 | not just what the God of the Bible has done through the ages,
00:30:18.240 | but prayers designed for your family to look back
00:30:24.040 | and remember the ways that God has shown
00:30:28.640 | his faithfulness to you, the situations
00:30:33.400 | that God has brought your family through,
00:30:37.120 | the times when you looked for a miracle and found one,
00:30:42.120 | the times when you really didn't know where to turn
00:30:47.300 | and God answered in a way that it would never
00:30:50.880 | have occurred to you to pray for.
00:30:53.860 | I wonder how much more full of joy
00:31:04.360 | our celebration of Christmas could become
00:31:08.900 | if we used our prayers to remember
00:31:13.400 | the goodness and faithfulness of God.
00:31:16.640 | That's really cool.
00:31:19.180 | I think that's the great example
00:31:20.960 | that we can take from Mary's response.
00:31:24.720 | How do you think she started to prepare herself
00:31:30.240 | for the birth?
00:31:32.920 | I mean, do you think she got it,
00:31:34.680 | that this is gonna be the Messiah
00:31:37.040 | that people had longed for?
00:31:39.140 | What kind of preparations do you think she made?
00:31:42.440 | - I think there had to be a banked excitement in her.
00:31:48.200 | Because absolutely, she realized that this was
00:31:53.200 | an answer to the prayers of the people of Israel.
00:31:55.860 | I don't think she had a clue what type of Messiah
00:31:58.920 | it would be, 'cause nobody did.
00:32:01.240 | I think they expected overthrow Rome.
00:32:03.920 | - Yes, they had a different picture in their mind.
00:32:06.400 | - Right, and so I'm sure it made it harder to believe
00:32:09.360 | that he was gonna be born to this poor family
00:32:11.960 | if he was gonna come and overthrow Rome.
00:32:13.960 | That dichotomy in Mary's mind had to be there.
00:32:16.960 | Because they didn't see the two comings of Christ,
00:32:21.120 | they put them in all as one.
00:32:22.800 | So I think she understood that this was the answer
00:32:26.960 | to generations of prayers and hope of the people.
00:32:30.400 | But I don't think she had the crucifixion in her mind at all.
00:32:35.400 | - Yes, I think you're right.
00:32:38.280 | I think you're right.
00:32:40.360 | I think she obviously began to prepare herself
00:32:45.360 | to have a baby, and I think she prepared herself
00:32:51.480 | to be what God was asking her to be.
00:32:57.440 | And I think she prepared by trusting God to make her
00:33:02.200 | and provide for her whatever she was gonna need to have
00:33:06.640 | or whatever she needed to become
00:33:09.360 | in order to accept this blessing that he bestowed on her.
00:33:14.360 | - I think the seeking out of Elizabeth
00:33:18.960 | as a godly older woman who could speak to her
00:33:22.360 | certainly showed part of her preparation.
00:33:24.480 | And then also seeking out Elizabeth
00:33:26.040 | because God was doing an amazing thing in her life.
00:33:29.240 | And so that can strengthen your faith
00:33:32.840 | when you surround yourself with people
00:33:35.920 | who have also seen God do great things.
00:33:38.840 | - That's great.
00:33:39.680 | Maybe that's one of the ways that we can get ready
00:33:43.640 | to celebrate Advent with our families,
00:33:47.720 | to seek out people who know God and who have seen him work
00:33:53.360 | and can tell us some stories and can give us some examples
00:33:58.360 | of the power and might and goodness and love of the Lord.
00:34:04.960 | - If you think of that exploring word
00:34:09.120 | from the scribblers list, exploring the stories
00:34:14.120 | of people that we know who have walked with God
00:34:18.160 | is what a delight that is and how often
00:34:22.960 | people love to tell those stories.
00:34:24.680 | And it's a blessing to them to have to tell them again.
00:34:29.000 | - That is great.
00:34:30.400 | That is great.
00:34:32.320 | Families, as you prepare your hearts for Advent,
00:34:37.080 | it might be strange to think that prayer, praying together
00:34:42.080 | could help you prepare for a deeper Advent season,
00:34:50.760 | but I think it can.
00:34:52.440 | And I'm suggesting that we all try that.
00:34:57.040 | I intend for our family to intentionally pray together,
00:35:02.040 | asking the Lord to deepen our preparation
00:35:07.200 | and deepen our celebration for this Advent season.
00:35:12.200 | Karen, I have one more question for you.
00:35:17.760 | - I think that a lot of times, as Christians,
00:35:22.400 | when we become convicted that we need to prepare
00:35:27.640 | for Christmas in a different way,
00:35:30.000 | we can sometimes look down or look sideways
00:35:36.840 | at people who are not preparing their hearts
00:35:40.600 | or not celebrating in the way that we think
00:35:43.880 | the holidays should be celebrated and the way that we know
00:35:47.680 | the Lord would want us to celebrate the birth of Christ.
00:35:51.280 | How can we reflect this preparation of our hearts
00:35:56.280 | for this season and lead others to celebrate Christmas
00:36:00.760 | more deeply without being preachy or holier than thou?
00:36:05.760 | How could we be a light in our neighborhood
00:36:10.720 | or to our extended family without turning people off?
00:36:15.080 | - Always a difficult question.
00:36:18.040 | I save it for the end, just for that purpose.
00:36:20.800 | - I think when we are convicted of things,
00:36:23.120 | sometimes it is too tempting to become a zealot.
00:36:26.640 | And I think that one of the ways we could do it
00:36:29.440 | is just telling the story of how this is working for us.
00:36:33.640 | When I was thinking through this was an easy way to pray,
00:36:39.120 | one of the things I thought of is the Israelites
00:36:41.320 | did stones of remembrance.
00:36:43.280 | - Oh, that's lovely.
00:36:45.040 | - And I thought, what if we got some jingle bells
00:36:47.360 | or something and they were our stone of remembrance.
00:36:49.400 | And every day when we prayed about something,
00:36:51.000 | we put the bells in a jar on the mantle or whatever.
00:36:55.520 | And that would be easy, but it would be something
00:36:57.320 | our kids could hold and they could get all of them out.
00:37:00.480 | When we had two, we'd have two out, when we have three,
00:37:02.320 | we'd have three out and they'd get bigger and bigger.
00:37:04.080 | The noise would be noisier and noisier.
00:37:06.520 | And I just thought, wouldn't that be something
00:37:09.080 | that would be fun to share with somebody?
00:37:10.800 | We did this thing and this is what my four-year-old said
00:37:14.120 | or this is what my seven-year-old said.
00:37:16.440 | And it was very meaningful to us.
00:37:18.560 | That's very palatable.
00:37:20.520 | And it's just gently telling our own story
00:37:24.440 | of something simple that we did.
00:37:28.000 | That's not even hard.
00:37:29.000 | It doesn't have to be crafted or look pretty
00:37:30.800 | or have any words on the jar or anything,
00:37:34.240 | just a bell jar and some jingle bells.
00:37:37.520 | And what a delight that could end up being.
00:37:41.720 | And what we're always taught to do is to share
00:37:44.120 | our testimonies, so sharing our testimonies of prayer
00:37:47.980 | could also be a way to share this concept.
00:37:51.480 | - Yes, yes.
00:37:53.200 | Not in a preachy way, but in a,
00:37:55.880 | this is helping our family celebrate in a way
00:37:58.400 | that we've never done before and this feels good
00:38:01.300 | and it feels rich and it feels real.
00:38:04.220 | I think that's lovely.
00:38:05.240 | I love that.
00:38:06.080 | I love the jingle bell.
00:38:07.000 | I may try that with my grandson.
00:38:09.320 | That's the sweetest thing.
00:38:10.800 | I love it, Karen.
00:38:11.840 | Thank you.
00:38:12.680 | That's really good.
00:38:13.840 | Listeners, I hope that this has given you something
00:38:20.640 | to think about and maybe some hope for a way
00:38:25.640 | that your family can celebrate the season more simply
00:38:30.640 | and more deeply by praying together.
00:38:36.440 | Join us every Tuesday in December.
00:38:40.160 | We're gonna look at one of the other scribblers verbs
00:38:43.400 | and how that activity can draw your family
00:38:48.400 | into a rich yet simple celebration of this Advent season.
00:38:54.480 | And you know, I've been talking about scribblers,
00:38:58.200 | scribblers, scribblers.
00:38:59.280 | Some of you may know about one of our newest resources.
00:39:03.520 | It's called Scribblers at Home,
00:39:05.200 | recipes from lifelong learners.
00:39:07.840 | Some of you may never have heard of this
00:39:10.880 | but I wanna tell you just a little bit
00:39:12.800 | because it might possibly make a great Christmas present
00:39:17.120 | for a family that you know.
00:39:19.120 | If you know a family that really enjoys learning together
00:39:24.120 | and playing together and doing things together,
00:39:28.220 | you could give them the gift of scribblers magic
00:39:31.220 | this Christmas.
00:39:32.440 | Scribblers at Home recipes from lifelong learners
00:39:36.460 | is full of fun step-by-step activities
00:39:40.740 | that use art and music and history and science and math
00:39:45.740 | to make education a joyful pursuit for the whole family.
00:39:51.040 | It really encourages families to learn together
00:39:54.400 | through intentional play.
00:39:57.140 | Even if you don't belong
00:39:58.840 | to a classical conversations community,
00:40:01.600 | scribblers will bring joy to every learner in the family
00:40:05.420 | no matter what age.
00:40:06.760 | It's not bound to an end community program.
00:40:10.840 | So even if you have friends or family members
00:40:13.680 | who don't do classical conversations
00:40:17.400 | or who don't even homeschool,
00:40:19.640 | they may find that this is a really fun way
00:40:23.240 | to spend time together learning as a family.
00:40:26.320 | Make a family's Christmas unforgettable this year
00:40:29.280 | with scribblers.
00:40:30.400 | And if you want to learn more,
00:40:32.780 | visit classicalconversations.com/scribblers, all right?
00:40:37.780 | Karen, thank you so much for helping
00:40:43.000 | this first Advent podcast to touch a great chord.
00:40:46.960 | I appreciate you, my friend.
00:40:49.120 | - My pleasure.
00:40:50.640 | - All right, guys, we will see you next week.
00:40:53.280 | (gentle music)
00:40:55.860 | (music fades)
00:40:58.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]