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Setting the Table of Wisdom: What We Pass On Matters · Grace for My Home | Christian Women, Growing in Faith

• 1:12
  Audrey: Hey friend, welcome back to Grace For my Home.
• 1:15
  Audrey: I know life's busy and our hearts can get so cluttered with all of the distractions and all of the demands and the things that are pulling on us for attention.
• 1:26
  Audrey: But right here, right now, in this space, let's slow down, let's take a deep breath and turn our eyes back on Jesus.
• 1:36
  Audrey: I'm so glad that you've joined me here again today.
• 1:41
  Audrey: Today, I want to talk with you about being a woman of wisdom and sharing that wisdom with other people.
• 1:50
  Audrey: And to start that conversation, I want to read to you from Proverbs.
• 1:54
  Audrey: Proverbs, chapter nine.
• 1:56
  Audrey: I want to read to you the first six verses and I'm going to read from the Amplified Version.
• 2:07
  Audrey: It says Wisdom has built her spacious and sufficient house.
• 2:09
  Audrey: She has hewn out and set up her seven pillars.
• 2:10
  Audrey: She has prepared her food.
• 2:13
  Audrey: She has mixed her wine.
• 2:15
  Audrey: She has also set her table.
• 2:18
  Audrey: She has sent out her maidens.
• 2:20
  Audrey: She calls from the highest places of the city Whoever is naive or inexperienced let him turn in here.
• 2:28
  Audrey: As for him who lacks understanding, she says come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed, and accept my gifts.
• 2:37
  Audrey: Leave behind your foolishness and the foolish and live and walk in the way of insight and understanding.
• 2:50
  Audrey: And I love the way here that wisdom is personified as a woman, because we as women have a great capacity to hold wisdom, to learn wisdom and to grow in wisdom.
• 3:02
  Audrey: So in Proverbs 9, wisdom is a woman who is making a meal.
• 3:08
  Audrey: She's preparing a table, and she first.
• 3:13
  Audrey: Well, first, let's back up.
• 3:14
  Audrey: First she makes a house.
• 3:15
  Audrey: She has set up seven pillars, she has made a space, she's made a place, and that's hard work.
• 3:22
  Audrey: You know, it's hard to build a house, it's hard to make a place where others can come in and be safe and secure and have covering over them and have a place to rest.
• 3:33
  Audrey: And as moms, as women, that's what we do.
• 3:36
  Audrey: We make a place, we make a house, a home, right, and so that's work, that's a lot of work, and after we make the space, we fill it with good things, and that's what she's done.
• 3:52
  Audrey: She's preparing her table, she is making her food, she's mixing her wine, she's setting the table, and then she goes out and she calls others, and she calls them in so they too can enjoy the things she's prepared, the things she's learned.
• 4:11
  Audrey: She doesn't want them to be unwise, she wants them to be wise the way she is and she calls out to them.
• 4:18
  Audrey: Wisdom is calling, it's always calling.
• 4:20
  Audrey: God wants us to be wise people.
• 4:23
  Audrey: He doesn't want us to be foolish.
• 4:26
  Audrey: One of the things I've learned about growing in wisdom is well, first of all, like I mentioned, it's work.
• 4:31
  Audrey: It's really easy not to grow in wisdom.
• 4:35
  Audrey: You just live.
• 4:35
  Audrey: You know, you never learn, you never grow.
• 4:38
  Audrey: To grow in wisdom means that you are constantly gathering pearls of wisdom, and I want to make a distinction there.
• 4:48
  Audrey: You know, wisdom isn't knowledge.
• 4:49
  Audrey: It's not just knowing things.
• 4:52
  Audrey: You know.
• 4:54
  Audrey: We live in an age, we're in a generation right now, where we think that we know more than any other generation that has lived, because we have Google and anything we want to know.
• 5:04
  Audrey: All we have to do is go and type it in on our phones and it's there.
• 5:09
  Audrey: We know it.
• 5:09
  Audrey: But wisdom isn't knowledge, it's not information.
• 5:14
  Audrey: It's not information.
• 5:15
  Audrey: Wisdom is knowing truth, recognizing truth when we hear it and applying truth to our everyday lives.
• 5:24
  Audrey: So see, there's a lot of knowledge out there, but it takes wisdom to know what's true and what's not true.
• 5:37
  Audrey: And then the next step is not just knowing and recognizing.
• 5:38
  Audrey: Ok, this is true, this is not true.
• 5:40
  Audrey: But how to take what is true and apply it to my life.
• 5:44
  Audrey: That takes time.
• 5:46
  Audrey: That's not something you can learn in a seminar or something you can sit down in a weekend and go from an unwise to a wise person in a day or two.
• 5:57
  Audrey: Learning to become wise, becoming a wise person, is a lifetime effort and we learn it in relationship.
• 6:06
  Audrey: You hear how she isn't just going on the street corner and passing out wisdom.
• 6:11
  Audrey: She's calling those who would become wise to come in and fellowship with her, to have a meal, to sit down.
• 6:19
  Audrey: You know we learn wisdom in moments like that.
• 6:24
  Audrey: We learn to be wise when we are around wise people, when we sit down and we sup with them and we fellowship with them and we have relationship with them.
• 6:35
  Audrey: Wisdom is transferred and we learn because we seek wisdom.
• 6:41
  Audrey: You know, if we don't want wisdom, we don't have to worry about it, because wisdom has to be sought.
• 6:48
  Audrey: You know.
• 6:49
  Audrey: It says in James if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask.
• 6:53
  Audrey: Let him ask of God and God will give it.
• 6:55
  Audrey: He'll give it freely, but you have to ask and God will give it.
• 6:58
  Audrey: He'll give it freely, but you have to ask, you have to seek it, you have to desire to be a wise person.
• 7:02
  Audrey: In order to become a wise person and I think that's important you know, wisdom goes and calls, and I've.
• 7:10
  Audrey: You know, I've found that as you learn things, as you become a wise person, there is such a desire in your heart to share the things that God teaches you with others, especially those that you love, because when we love people, we want to save them from as much pain as we can right.
• 7:33
  Audrey: I mean, we've been through some things, we've hurt in certain areas, we've fallen, and we've learned from those things and we would love to save those that we love from hurting in those areas.
• 7:47
  Audrey: So we share our wisdom with them.
• 7:50
  Audrey: Now, sometimes, best case, they take that wisdom, they take those words and they take them to heart and they remember them and they apply them to their own life.
• 7:59
  Audrey: But more times than not, they have to fall themselves, they have to feel some pain themselves in order to recognize the value of the wisdom that we're sharing with them.
• 8:13
  Audrey: And so, as women of wisdom, yes, there is a desire to share what God has shown us.
• 8:21
  Audrey: I think that's a godly desire.
• 8:22
  Audrey: I think he puts that in our hearts to share with those that we love what God has taught us the wisdom he shared with us, but God has to prepare their hearts to receive and appreciate the wisdom that he gives us.
• 8:37
  Audrey: We can call them, we can say, hey, listen, I have something really important to tell you.
• 8:42
  Audrey: And we can share that wisdom in the context of relationship.
• 8:47
  Audrey: But God has to prepare that heart in the context of relationship.
• 8:50
  Audrey: But God has to prepare that heart.
• 8:51
  Audrey: You know, god has to teach them to be discerning, to know the difference between what is true and what's not true and to desire the truth and to learn how to apply that wisdom just the same way we did.
• 9:04
  Audrey: But as a mom, you know, one of my biggest desires is to teach my children wisdom, is to give them as much as they will allow.
• 9:12
  Audrey: And so that's what we do.
• 9:16
  Audrey: And you know, I see myself in this woman in Proverbs 9.
• 9:20
  Audrey: And you know, she's making a meal, and not just a small meal.
• 9:25
  Audrey: She's making a banquet, she's prepared her home.
• 9:29
  Audrey: She's prepared her home, she is preparing her food, she's mixing her wine, she's setting her table and then she's sending her girls out to say come, come, everything's ready.
• 9:43
  Audrey: If you've ever fixed a big meal for a lot of people, you know like, maybe you've hosted Thanksgiving or Christmas at your home or a birthday party or celebration.
• 9:53
  Audrey: There's a lot that goes into that.
• 9:54
  Audrey: You know there's a lot of planning.
• 9:56
  Audrey: There's a lot of.
• 9:57
  Audrey: You know there's timelines.
• 9:59
  Audrey: You've got to get the timeline right.
• 10:00
  Audrey: You've got to get the.
• 10:01
  Audrey: You know the preparation.
• 10:04
  Audrey: You know sometimes you make things ahead.
• 10:06
  Audrey: Sometimes things can't be made until the last minute.
• 10:09
  Audrey: You've got to make sure all the invitations go out.
• 10:11
  Audrey: You got to make sure that you know who's bringing what, if somebody's helping you with that meal.
• 10:15
  Audrey: And then, of course, you got to clean the house and get everything ready.
• 10:19
  Audrey: And then, when everything is just so, you know you light the candles and you bring everybody and you cut on the music and you set the tone.
• 10:29
  Audrey: And that's what it's like for us as women of wisdom.
• 10:32
  Audrey: We are preparing, we're making a place and we are inviting people to come alongside of us to learn from us.
• 10:44
  Audrey: We're preparing for them meals that, hopefully, will give them the strength and the wisdom and the understanding that they need to grow in wisdom and grace and strength.
• 10:58
  Audrey: You know, when we serve our family a natural meal that gives them the energy for the next day and the next day we can serve them more than just a natural meal.
• 11:13
  Audrey: But we serve them a spiritual meal where we share with them wisdom, when we share with them the things that the Lord has been teaching us or showing us, then we're giving them spiritual food and we're giving them something that's going to last a lot longer than a natural meal.
• 11:26
  Audrey: It's going to help them grow.
• 11:28
  Audrey: It's going to help them become wise.
• 11:30
  Audrey: Even though they may not appreciate it today, there'll be a day when they'll look back and they'll remember those nuggets that we dropped.
• 11:38
  Audrey: They'll remember those meals.
• 11:39
  Audrey: They'll remember those things that we taught them.
• 11:41
  Audrey: It will help them, hopefully, stay on the road of wisdom and not be foolish.
• 11:46
  Audrey: But to be wise, isn't that good?
• 11:49
  Audrey: We are passing on wisdom to the next generation.
• 11:54
  Audrey: And guys, this isn't just moms and children.
• 11:57
  Audrey: This is a Titus 2 woman.
• 11:59
  Audrey: She's passing on what she has learned.
• 12:02
  Audrey: Now this is Ruth and Naomi.
• 12:04
  Audrey: Naomi is passing on to Ruth what she's learned, what she knows about the Lord, what she knows about serving him, and that's how God passes on wisdom from one generation to the next.
• 12:17
  Audrey: It's through fellowship, it's through love, it's through growing in grace and growing in wisdom ourselves that we have something worth passing on to the next generation and guys, it's so good.
• 12:29
  Audrey: Isn't that a blessing?
• 12:31
  Audrey: Isn't that a blessing to be able to pass on to those we love the wisdom that God has trusted us with, and that's one of the reasons that we learn.
• 12:43
  Audrey: There's a saying in learning I teach and in teaching I learn.
• 12:49
  Audrey: I spent 12 years as a homeschool mom and at the time, you know, I thought I was teaching my children and I was, but there was a lot more going on.
• 13:00
  Audrey: I was also being reminded as I was teaching them.
• 13:05
  Audrey: I was having to find the things.
• 13:08
  Audrey: What do I want to teach them?
• 13:09
  Audrey: You know, what are the things I want to make sure that I pass on to them?
• 13:12
  Audrey: It made me dig deep.
• 13:13
  Audrey: It made me think about okay, what do I believe and why do I believe it, and how can I share that in bite-sized pieces to these that I love?
• 13:24
  Audrey: How can I share with them my faith?
• 13:26
  Audrey: How can I share with them what I believe?
• 13:28
  Audrey: It forced me to get real and to find out exactly what I believe, because it's hard to teach somebody something if you don't know what you believe yourself.
• 13:37
  Audrey: I was constantly reminding them of these principles, and what it did was not only was I teaching them, but I was reminding myself.
• 13:47
  Audrey: And so when you know, it's so funny, a lot of times people think of teaching children, as you know, that's just that's child's play or that's, that's not that important.
• 13:57
  Audrey: And and maybe you don't feel that way I hope you don't feel that way but you know, a lot of times in our churches people see those who do the children's ministry as maybe just not as spiritual or as important.
• 14:12
  Audrey: But I'm going to tell you that is where the life is and you know, but it's almost seen like it's child's play.
• 14:21
  Audrey: Right, because we're teaching children.
• 14:23
  Audrey: But how many times did I sit down with my children to teach them something?
• 14:28
  Audrey: And you know and of course you know, I know this, this is the teacher telling the student what they should do and how they should act or how they should be.
• 14:39
  Audrey: And the Holy Spirit so many times.
• 14:41
  Audrey: I cannot tell you how many times he would put his finger on my heart and say are you doing that, audrey?
• 14:46
  Audrey: Are you living that out?
• 14:48
  Audrey: Is that real for you?
• 14:49
  Audrey: Are you just telling them you do this?
• 14:52
  Audrey: But, mama, but it doesn't really apply to adults.
• 14:56
  Audrey: And you know, the Lord showed me time and time again this that you're teaching your children is only as real to them as as it is real to you.
• 15:08
  Audrey: If it is not important to you, if it is not something that you're doing and you're actually living out, then it really has no influence in their life, because they're going to learn not what you're telling them, but what you're showing them and they're going to.
• 15:25
  Audrey: What they're going to learn is that this is important to say we believe, but it's not really.
• 15:30
  Audrey: Is that this is important to say we believe, but it's not really important to do.
• 15:32
  Audrey: This is what we say.
• 15:34
  Audrey: It's not necessarily what we do.
• 15:35
  Audrey: So the Lord so many times had to remind me.
• 15:39
  Audrey: Give them a living example, show them this is not just what we teach our kids, this is how we live.
• 15:44
  Audrey: And it kept me on my toes and it kept me in the word and it kept me.
• 15:50
  Audrey: It helped me not to what's the how am I trying?
• 15:54
  Audrey: What am I trying to say?
• 15:54
  Audrey: It helped me not to be have my head in the clouds.
• 15:57
  Audrey: It helped me to learn to be very practical in the things I was teaching my children and that if I wasn't walking in it, if it wasn't real in my life, then I could not teach that right then I had to put it away until it became real in my life.
• 16:11
  Audrey: And that's what wisdom is.
• 16:13
  Audrey: It's not just what we say we believe, it's who we are, it's how we're walking.
• 16:17
  Audrey: And you know, and that's the wonderful thing about teaching others is we don't have to have it all together before we start teaching others.
• 16:26
  Audrey: We just have to be a little ahead of them on the road right.
• 16:29
  Audrey: It's kind of like showing somebody the path.
• 16:32
  Audrey: You don't have to be at the end of the path.
• 16:37
  Audrey: Actually it's probably better that you're not at the end of the path, because they may not can see you or hear you.
• 16:39
  Audrey: If you're just a little further ahead of them, maybe even close enough that you can grab their hand and show them, then you can lead them down the path.
• 16:48
  Audrey: And so we don't have to have it all together, we don't have to have arrived, we just have to be willing to be on the path and growing and walking in the truth and we can bring those we love with us.
• 17:05
  Audrey: And I hope today's message has been encouraging to you and not too rambly.
• 17:10
  Audrey: I can get rambly, I don't mean to, but I love you and I want you to get this.
• 17:16
  Audrey: I want you to see that you are a wise woman, growing in wisdom, daily learning, applying, falling, getting back up, learning from that, and it's natural to want to pass that along to those that you love.
• 17:33
  Audrey: And God is going to teach us how to do that, little by little by little, and he's going to help us to be real in it so that there's real power behind it, so that we're women of integrity integrity and we're going to enjoy the fellowship that comes with that.
• 17:55
  Audrey: You know, building a home, not only does it bless those who live under your roof, but it blesses you too.
• 18:02
  Audrey: You know, we create something beautiful, but we also get to live in it, and there is no greater joy for me on this side of heaven, I think than to be able to look back and say Lord, thank you for this home that you helped me create, because I didn't have the wisdom to do it.
• 18:21
  Audrey: It had to be you, lord, and I love you very much.
• 18:25
  Audrey: I have some exciting things coming down the pike.
• 18:27
  Audrey: I'm working on our first Bible study I'm going to I have decided I'm going to do a Bible study on the book of Ruth because that has been very popular, as I've thrown out there.
• 18:37
  Audrey: You know, and I've asked people what do you want to to learn about?
• 18:40
  Audrey: A lot of people have said Ruth and and I love the book of Ruth.
• 18:44
  Audrey: It's a beautiful book and so I'm working on that now and I'll have more information on that as time goes on.
• 18:52
  Audrey: Before we go, I'd like to say a prayer for you today and just bless you, father.
• 18:58
  Audrey: I thank you for these ladies who are doing the work of the ministry in their homes, in their communities, in their churches, that, lord, they are life givers and you are bubbling up inside of them life and, lord, you're going to show them how to pour out that life, lord, that it brings joy to them and to their own families.
• 19:23
  Audrey: But, lord, it's not just for them, it's for others, and I pray, lord, that you would show them the wisdom that you've taught them.
• 19:30
  Audrey: Sometimes we have to be reminded that you have done a work in us and, lord, show us, show them, how to share that with others and help them find others that need it.
• 19:43
  Audrey: Well, sometimes it just feels like nobody needs what we have.
• 19:46
  Audrey: God, help them find an outlet where they can share the good things that you've done in their life with other people, and we just thank you for it.
• 19:55
  Audrey: We thank you that, lord, your grace is more than enough.
• 19:58
  Audrey: In Jesus name, amen.
• 20:02
  Audrey: That's it for today, but don't let this conversation stop here.
• 20:06
  Audrey: Take what you've heard, sit with it, wrestle with it, pray over it, because truth isn't just something that we listen to, it's something that we live, it's something that we become.
• 20:17
  Audrey: And if today's episode spoke with you, please share it with a friend, and, as always, I'm cheering you on as we walk this journey of faith together, one step at a time.
• 20:28
  Audrey: Until next time, stay rooted, stay faithful and keep your eyes on Him.