For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Note: Please note that the text below is an uncorrected transcript of the audio captured for this podcast. We pray the Lord uses these words to bless you as you seek Him!
Meredith Brock: Hi, friends. Thanks for tuning in to the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast where we share biblical truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Meredith Brock, and I am here today with my co host, Kendra LeGrand.
Kendra LeGrand: Hey, Meredith.
Meredith Brock: I love saying your last name.
Kendra LeGrand: Oh, thank you. It is a good last name, I will say. To have grand in your last name
Meredith Brock: To have grand in your last name
Kendra LeGrand: Yeah. Like, it's a LeGrand time. It it works. Right? It works. It really works. Uh-huh. Alright. So we just wrapped, wrapped up recording with our dear friend, Jennifer Rothschild. And I won't share too much, but I would like to give our listeners a sneak peek. And so today you're gonna hear from Jennifer on a few things. How to wait for heaven when life is hard, how to want God more the things that he gives us, how to trust him. Those are just a few things, but there's a lot in today's episode.
Meredith Brock: It's a fantastic episode, and honestly one that I needed today. And so it was a gift for me to be able to record it with her. But before we let you listen to today's episode, we wanna remind you about our Encouragement for Today devotions. This podcast episode is coming out close to the beginning of the year. And if you're anything like me, this is the time of year where I make really intentional decisions to cut the clutter and focus my mind on the truth.
One way Proverbs 31 Ministries can help you do just that is by adding biblical encouragement to your inbox. And I promise, it's not just another sales email from your favorite store. It is biblical encouragement. So if you're not already subscribed to our Encouragement for Today weekday devotions, click the link in our show notes to sign up for totally free.
Kendra LeGrand: That's awesome. I get them.
Meredith Brock: I get them too. I love them.
Kendra LeGrand: Alright, friends. Let's dive into today's episode.
Meredith Brock: We are excited to welcome our friend, Jennifer Rothschild, to the show today.
Kendra LeGrand: Yes. Okay. Jennifer is a longtime friend of Proverbs 31 Ministries, and we are thrilled she's finally a guest on the podcast. And for those who don't know her, I'd love to tell you more about her right now.
She is the author of 19 books. So that is a good amount of books.
Meredith Brock: That's a few.
Kendra LeGrand: Yes. She is a fantastic speaker and the host of the 4:13 Podcast. And because I've known Jennifer for a while and I've got to work with her, she would want you to know this. I also wanna let you know that she's been blind since the age of 15. So much of her testimonies and teachings come from what the Lord has taught her. And while she lacks the ability to see the physical, she is a woman of depth who truly makes you feel seen. When you're around her, she is the absolute best.
Jennifer, before we jump into what you're really here to talk about today, which is your new Bible study called Heaven, When Faith Becomes Sight, I do wanna ask you a fun question. And so because heaven is all about, you know, we're looking forward to our final our final place, heaven, what would if you could look back to maybe your teenage self, what piece of advice would you give her? So instead of looking forward, we're gonna look back a little bit. Oh. Uh-huh.
Jennifer Rothschild: I love that, Kendra. Okay. If I'm gonna look back, what am I gonna tell my teenage self? Well, first of all, I would've now said, teenage self, wash your face every night. Don't fall asleep with your makeup on.
Kendra LeGrand: Okay. Oh, that's a good one.
Jennifer Rothschild: That's one thing. But secondly, and more importantly, is trust yourself a little more. Just trust yourself because if you're walking with the Lord and you truly are seeking Hs will and His ways, then you can trust yourself.
You don't have to be like everyone else. You don't have to assume everyone else knows more than you or is right. You can trust yourself if you're trusting your God. I learned that lesson, but it took me a lot longer. I wish I had known that more as a teenager.
Meredith Brock: That line right there, you can trust yourself when you're trusting God. That is good. I am I've got a 9 year old preteen girl, so I'm jotting this down as, like, okay, remember to tell her, wash her face before she goes to bed, and you can trust yourself if you trust the Lord. So, alright. Like Kendra mentioned earlier, Jennifer is here today to share a teaching from her new bible study, and we're looking forward to hearing what God has laid on her heart.
Jennifer, go ahead and take it away.
Jennifer Rothschild: Well, I love, and I thank you, Kendra. I love that you, shared with our friends that I am blind. I've been blind since I was 15, and that's that's something interesting that's helped me see heaven more clearly. And I remember way back, just as being newly blind as a teenager, I began, over the years, to just hold the arms of friends and family and strangers to help me navigate because I couldn't see.
It just helped me to navigate this unending darkness. And that also means that I've held tight to my faith, and I have been held by God's faithfulness. And the truth is, I've also held a white cane. I still carry 1 today. I've definitely walked by faith and not by sight, and and in a very literal sense.
But, you know, walking in the dark and walking by faith, they're not very different. 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verse 7, it describes how all of us navigate on this side of eternity. We truly do walk by faith, not by sight. So, I will never forget when I was a teenage girl how Mike, who was my mobility instructor, finished up my very first lesson of learning to walk in the dark. I was 17, and, I got my first white cane.
And so with it, I got my mobility instructor, Mike. He was the amazing guy who taught me how to use this cane. So on that first lesson, we were in my neighborhood, and he walked me around the neighborhood and he showed me how to navigate, and it really helped me, you know, right away get a sense of independence. And so as we're walking around the neighborhood, he's pointing out how to hold the cane, how to tap the cane, and just how to carry it in such a way that I could anticipate the rough places that were ahead of me. So, near the end of this lesson, I'll be honest, I was very sweaty from the Miami heat, but probably also just from the stress that I felt.
And so we turned the last corner, and we're right near my home, and Mike pauses, and he asked, Jennifer, can you smell the flowers? And so I paused and breathed it in, and I stopped, and I was like, Oh, yeah. I I could smell it. It was a lush blooming bush of hibiscus right there by my home. And and I could.
I could smell that fragrance. And so Mike says to me, when you smell the flowers, you know you're almost home. So I'm going to ask all of us right here, right now, whatever you're doing, just pause for just a minute. You're walking by faith. Can you smell the fragrance of heaven?
It's wafting along this path that you walk and it's your reminder that your home, heaven, it is not far away. I mean, it might be, you know, a million heartbeats away, of course, or it or it could be one heartbeat away. We don't know. But what we do know is that heaven is our certain reality. It is our home when we are in Christ.
It's when your faith becomes sight. So knowing heaven is real and knowing heaven is yours, it's going to help you to keep walking by faith, especially when the road is dark, when the road is hard. So the question is, how? So like, how does the reality of heaven really impact us today? How does that reality that someday our faith will become sight impact our ability to walk by faith right now and not by sight?
So I'm gonna give us two ways, according to Scripture, that we can walk by faith until our faith becomes sight. So for our notetakers out there and by the way, you can rewind later if you're driving. But for our notetakers, your first way to walk by faith and not by sight until your faith becomes sight is to wait. Wait well while you walk. That was a lot of w's, but wait well while you walk.
Because to walk well, we've gotta learn how to wait well. Now, here's what I mean by that. Biblical waiting is this active anticipation. It's like a certain expectation that is just a matter of time until God's promise is fully realized. It's in contrast to what we often think of waiting, you know, is like a passive, pointless posture where we just buy time or spend time or waste time or fill our time.
No. That kind of waiting is draining and exhausting, but biblical waiting is strengthening, and it puts us in this position to experience joy in the meantime, even before the wait is over. So, Psalm 62, verse 1 shows us how to do this. It shows us how to wait well, and it's interesting, y'all, because it's more about the who than it is the how. The New American Standard Bible is the one I'm referring to in Psalm 62, verse 1.
It says, My soul waits in silence for God only. My soul waits in silence for God only, not for things from God, but for God only. And it's interesting. It says, My soul waits. The New International Version says, My soul rests.
So when we wait like that or just God alone, there is a sense of restfulness in that waiting. I mean, that's an incredible way to wait. We're waiting for him alone, not for what he does, just for who he is. But here's the thing, because God is a healer, because God does deliver, because God is a prayer answerer, sometimes we get caught up with just waiting, you know, to get the healing or to get the deliverance or to get the prayer answered. I mean, I've done that with blindness.
I want to wait on God alone and on his will and his ways. But there are sometimes, because he is a healer, I think, well, God, I'm waiting for the healing because you can do that. But there's a difference in waiting for God alone and in just waiting for things from him. When we wait on God, ultimately, God alone, we wait on him, not just things from him. And that kind of waiting, it really is a posture of trust that invites peace and stability.
In fact, listen to that next verse in Psalm 62. Psalm 62 verse 2 says that God alone is my rock. He is my salvation. He is my fortress. And here's the part I love, and I will not be shaken.
Why? Because when we're waiting for God alone, for who he is, there's a stability that is ushered in even when the path of faith we walk is rocky. When we wait on God, we're not shaken in this life, even if the walk gets hard and the way it gets long. But the beautiful thing is this, my friends, when our faith does become sight in heaven someday, we're going to realize that God and God alone was worth it. He was worth everything.
He's worth the wait and all the things that he gave us in this life or could have given us or all the things we wish that he had given us. We're gonna realize someday that those things, they weren't as important as we thought, not compared to knowing him. So now all this is the way I want to live. I want to walk well by waiting well, but sometimes I have to recalibrate my spirit. And so I'm just going to share with you some questions that I sit down with my soul and I ask myself.
And maybe you need to do that today. You need to just sit down with your soul and ask yourself a couple of questions. I'm going to give you 3 questions to help you see in the mirror of your heart. Am I waiting on God alone? Is this helping me and strengthening me as I walk by faith?
So here's three questions. First question: Do I wait on God more than I wait on things from God? Really ask yourself, do I wait on God more than I wait on things from God? Second question: Do I put my hope in God, not outcomes? This one's a hard one. Do I put my hope in God, not outcomes? So in other words, where is my hope? Is it in God and God alone, or is it in what I hope he does for me?
I mean, because I know God could heal me. So is my hope ultimately in the healing I may receive from him, or is my hope ultimately in him, and him alone, no matter what he does or does not choose to do? It's a hard question. Here's a third question, last question. Can I trust God's timing and process more than I trust my calendar and my plans?
Okay. This is a hard one, so I'm going to ask you it again. Can I trust God's timing and process more than I trust my calendar and my plans? These three questions just kinda help us explore our own hearts. And when when God really clarifies the answers for us, I think it'll help us experience stability and hope and wait well as we walk by faith.
Okay. One more verse that I think helps us wait well. This is in, Titus 2, verse 13. And, the verse says, while we wait for that blessed hope, the appearing of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people, that's you and me, who are his very own. Now listen to this last part, what what the verse is saying about us, his people, people who are eager to do what is good, people who are eager to do what is good.
So my friends, let's be women who wait well, becoming less about getting what is good from God, though he does give us so many good things, but more about doing what is good for and through God. Because when you do walk by faith, your faithfulness, it's gonna be affirmed when your faith becomes sight. Alright. Which leads me to the second way. Now, there's many ways, of course, that we, through scripture and God's spirit, walk by faith, but I'm just giving us 2 today.
So that leads me to our second and last way that we can walk by faith. Watch for the day when your faith becomes sight. So we're gonna wait well as we're walking by faith. Right? But we're also gonna watch for that day when our faith becomes sight.
Because for now, we really do. We walk by faith, not by sight. In the darkness of my blindness, y'all, I am walking by faith. But here's the thing, on an ordinary Monday, you're walking by faith. In the middle of carpool lines, in the middle of a playgroup, in the middle of your messy marriage, empty nest, a hospital room, birthday parties and funerals, all of that, in every moment of this life, we are walking by faith.
But there will come a day when the wait is over, when the fragrance of those flowers is so strong that we'll know we're almost home. And the door that we've been knocking on our whole lives is finally going to be open to us, and we will see Jesus face to face. Oh, man. I I just I can't wait. 1st Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 12 says that for now, we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we are gonna see face to face.
Now, we just know only in part, but then, Paul says, I shall know fully even as I am known. So for the believer in Christ, heaven is our promised and certain life after death. It's that place where we've been made for, and someday, the waiting and the watching, it's all gonna be over and the walk of faith will end. 2nd Corinthians, chapter 5 verse 8 says that to be absent from these bodies that you and I are living in right now means we are gonna be present with the Lord. That means, that day that we're watching for, it may be the day that we breathe our last here on Earth and our bodies pass from death to life, but it also, if you don't pass away before, it could be when Jesus himself returns to take his church home.
Either way, we're going to step fully into what I call our glorious unending, that day when our faith is finally sight. Jesus calls heaven, in John 14, his Father's house. I love that. That means if heaven is Jesus's Father's house, it's our Father's house too. And Jesus promised it.
Jesus prepared it. So until we get there, we want the reality of heaven to make a difference now. So I want us to end this time together where we've kinda thought about waiting for heaven and watching for heaven. I want us to talk about very practically, what do we do? What do we do?
How, as we're waiting, as we're watching, how do we process all the parts of our faith here? We're gonna be super practical. I'm gonna give you a couple of ways. 1st, when life is hard, when faith is difficult, when you lose somebody you love, when you live with longing, when you live with a loss, the Bible teaches us how to deal with this in a very practical way. 1, we're gonna grieve with hope because grieving is real.
Loss is part of this life, but we don't have to do it without hope. 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 13 tells us, brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope. Oh, my goodness, my sisters. In Christ, we have hope because we know our worst day here, our last day here, it is not the last day. There will be a new day, a glorious day.
So we don't have to grieve like we have no hope because we have the hope of our resurrection because of Christ's resurrection. I was in the kitchen with my daughter-in-law a few years ago, and, I was trying so hard to to impress her. I'll be honest, I wanted to impress her because here she was, knew the family. Her mother-in-law's blind, and I was making it it was Thanksgiving dinner, which is like, let's be honest, the Olympics of meal prep. And so as I had 14 different things going on at once, I was getting really frustrated because I had gotten I burned my arm on one of the pans, I forgot to close the microwave door, and I hit my face on it.
There was just thing after thing. And poor Caroline, my daughter-in-law, sitting there, Can I help? Can I help? I'm like, No, no, no. I got this.
I got this. Clearly, I didn't have it. But anyway, finally, she says to me, Man, blindness must be so hard. And at that moment, I was so embarrassed and frustrated, and it was. Blindness was so hard, and I was so tired of it.
And it was like the Lord just downloaded this beautiful thought to me, and I looked at her and I said, yeah, it is hard. But here's the thing, earth is short and heaven is long. Y'all, because that's true, because earth is short and heaven is long, we don't have to grieve like we've got no hope. We've got the hope of our glorious unending. And so we can, when the road is rough, we can grieve like women who have hope.
But a second way that's very practical that I want you to remember is to keep in mind that you can focus on forever. Why? Because earth is short. Heaven is long. You can focus on what lasts longer than this problem, than this this, trial that you're dealing with.
Revolution. Revolution. Sorry. Revelation 21 verse 4 is a verse I focus on all the time because it says that he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There's gonna come a day when there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.
Why? Because the old order of things has passed away. My sisters, there's gonna come a day when all of this is over and it gives way to our glorious unending when our faith literally becomes sight. So as you navigate through bright days here, through dark days here, hold on to your faith and thank god that you are held by his faithfulness because the shadows that you face here and that you feel here, sickness, uncertainty, stress, sorrow, all the things, they're gonna lift. In the light of the one you will clearly see when your faith becomes sight.
So my sisters onward and upward, earth is short, heaven is long, so let's wait well and let's watch for that beautiful day. Alright. And all the sisters said Amen. Amen. Amen.
Meredith Brock: Amen. Amen. Bring it on, Lord. Right? Bring it on. That is right, Jennifer. I needed that today. I needed the reminder that earth is short and heaven is long and to focus on what is truly forever. I was just sitting here reflecting and thinking about, maybe that gal who's in her car right now listening to this, and I loved when you talked about recalibrating your spirit when you're in a waiting season, because to be entirely honest, I am terrible at waiting. Like, so bad at it.
I am a person who moves quickly all the time. I I have a 4 year old and he just this morning, he insists on getting himself out of his car seat now, and it is the slowest experience of my life. And every morning, because I'm trying to get him into preschool and, like, get to the office and go, I wanna pull my hair out because he's like, no, mommy, no. And it was while you were talking about waiting, I was just struck with this overwhelming sense of how terrible I am at it. And those questions for recalibrating your spirit in a waiting season was really good for me to reflect on, to think on, do I want something from God more than I want God?
And can I trust God's timing more than I trust my calendar and my plans? And so my question for you, Jennifer, as I reflected on those, because to be honest, and I don't necessarily want to be right now, but I would say that I probably say no to quite a few of those questions right now. And so what do what do you do when you when you recognize, you know what? I don't trust God's timing. I trust my calendar.
I trust my plans. And how do you, in that moment of recalibration, correct and and find yourself re like, truly recalibrate?
Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. Such a good question, Meredith. Because first of all, the thing you do not do is shame yourself because shame never brings freedom.
And I think that's where you have to give yourself grace because often where we struggle most, it's a reflection of some of our greatest strength. So if I'm trusting my calendar and I'm trusting my plans, it's probably because I've got it going on. You know what I mean? And I've got some good plans. So first of all, let me just say to you, because I know women who listen to a podcast like this, you've got it going on.
So do not feel shame. Feel that gentle tap on the shoulder from the Lord that's saying, I want more for you. And then the way I recalibrate is by really just examining and saying and asking the why. So instead of I go to the what of correction and the how of correction, I go to the why. And in the why, perhaps, I'm able to see, well, why is it maybe, Lord, that I trust my calendar more than you?
And and in that why, you can trust the Holy Spirit to show you why, and then you don't go necessarily to your BFF or to a self help book. You go to the Word. And you refocus on the who, and the who is God. And maybe that's when you need to just read through how trustworthy He is and ask him through His grace.
Lord, help me to trust you more than I trust my feelings. I don't wanna be dependent on outcomes from You. I wanna be dependent on You alone, but that's hard for me. So remind me of Your character. Show me through Your word who You are.
And then I'm gonna just trust God that it is You, Your spirit, who works in me both to will and to work for Your good pleasure. I don't need to make this happen. I need to make myself available to You to make it happen in me.
Meredith Brock: That's good, Jennifer. I needed to hear that today.
Kendra LeGrand: Thank you. That's good. Thank you. Alright. Jennifer, I wanna go back to the beginning of your teaching when you told the story about Mike and how he was taking you around your neighborhood and how you stopped and you smelled, the flowers and that, like, showed you that you were almost home.
Okay? And you said, do you smell the fragrance of heaven? And so on the days when maybe that that woman in the car or that woman in a meeting just like feels the weight of the world and, needs a glimpse of heaven, what are some everyday things or ways that she can look for heaven here on earth just to help her endure it?
Jennifer Rothschild: I love that question because the fragrance of heaven is everywhere if we're able to tune in. I believe that the beauty and the reality of that day in heaven shows up on this day.
And the way I have experienced here on this day is through the beauty of what God has created. So if you're feeling the weight of the world, maybe shift your gaze, look out the window, see the see the beauty of that tree. Maybe if this is fall or spring or winter when you're listening, maybe the tree has leaves on it or icicles. It doesn't matter. It's all a reflection of God's beauty.
Seek even just to look even at the sometimes what I will do because I cannot see is sometimes I'll even literally just, feel the surface of the palm of my hand or the top of my hand, and I'll feel the smoothness of my skin or I'll feel the places where I realize, oh, my skin is, it may be less firm than it used to be to be. Now why is that part of a reminder of heaven? Because it's the beauty of how God's created me. It's the softness of the skin He put on my body. It's the reminder that maybe outwardly I'm wasting away, I'm feeling some wrinkles, but inwardly, daily, I'm being renewed.
Perhaps you look into the eyes of a child and you see the beauty of what God has created, and you recognize that we're all made for eternity. There's so many ways, I believe, if we tune into eternity, we do it through God's creation, what he's made in the created world, and the beauty of his creation in each other. The people that surround you even now, we are all going to be seated at the table someday at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Oh, behold the beauty of God's creation and how we're gonna be together someday. It helps us see how the reality of heaven shows up in this day.
So I guess partly, it's an abstract answer to a question that sometimes we want a concrete formula, and there's not one. But if we tune in and we begin to pay attention to the fact that we are made for eternity, so therefore, let's not get caught up just in longevity. Let's see beyond this day. I believe we can see it on this day.
Meredith Brock: Jennifer, we are just so thankful for you, for your hard earned wisdom and insight into the word and just living on this side of heaven.
So thank you so much for sharing your message with us today. Guys, if you wanna connect with Jennifer, I wanna encourage you to head over to her website at jenniferrothschild.com to see where she's speaking. She speaks all over the place, and I would highly encourage you to get to one of those locations. Also, check out her podcast. It's the 4:13 Podcast.
Those are numbers, the number 4 and 13 podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. And lastly, if this message, if what she's spoken about today has pricked something in your heart and you're recognizing that you do need to learn more about what scripture says about heaven and living by faith, we really wanna encourage you to pick up her new Bible study, heaven, when faith becomes sight. We've linked it in our show notes for you, and we would highly encourage you to engage with that study.
Kendra LeGrand: And also, it's been a while since we much mentioned our free email daily devotions here on the podcast. So if you're looking for some encouragement that comes straight to your inbox instead of junk mail, every weekday subscribe to Encouragement For Today by clicking the link in our show notes.
Meredith Brock: And that's it for today, friends. At Proverbs 31 Ministries, we believe when you know the truth and live the truth, it really does change everything.