RUN LIKE A CHAMPION

Family Life – 10
Sammy Tippit: We’ve been talking about family life. We first talked about the husband-wife relationship. Most recently, we’ve been talking about the parent-child relationship. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the husband, wife, parent, or child… Really, we are only as good a husband, wife, or parent as we are a person. What God is really interested in is making us the people we ought to be.

If we’ll be the kind of people we should be, we’ll be the kind of parents we should be. If we’ll be the kind of people we should be, we’ll be the kind of husbands or wives we should be. So I want us to draw this whole discussion about family life back to becoming the kind of people God wants us to be. Let’s just go around and talk about one thing that has helped us to grow in our faith, grow in our walk with God, and become the kind of person God wants us to be. Tex, I’ll let you start this off.
Tex Tippit: I would say that two other things that go into it are God’s Word and God’s people. Having that balance in my life has helped me to walk through the Christian life.
Sammy: Okay. How has God’s Word helped you?
Tex: Well, as I hide his Word in my heart, he causes me to walk in the way I should walk and be the mom, grandmother, or wife I should be. That’s has helped. With God’s people… We’ve said before that other people like y’all can see things in me that may be weaknesses or character flaws I don’t see, so that can help. The Bible says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” So I need that in my life.
Sammy: We’re talking about God’s Word… The Bible says, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” It shows you the way. It shows you the way to go. But it’s people who help you go down the path. They have to bring it out, flesh it out. Would that be kind of what you’re saying?
Tex: Mm-hmm.
Sammy: Okay. Kelly? What about you?
Kelly Tippit: Well, I think trusted friendships would be one of the top things for me. The importance of having a group of girls I can go to and just be honest with, share my struggles with, send a quick text to and let know, “This is what I’m struggling with…” Just having the relationships over years where they know me and I know they’re praying for me has been life- giving to me to help me progress on this journey and keep going.
Sammy: There’s a group of girls who, if I’m not mistaken, you get together with almost annually. Is that correct? Y’all share and so forth?
Kelly: Right. We get together about four times a year. Now one of them is way overseas, but we still have Viber, and we can text her, so we still have that connection. We get together about four times a year, and that has been going on for about 20 years now. They have seen… They know where I’ve struggled. They know my ins and outs. Having those special people, I think, has really helped on this walk.
Sammy: So for both of y’all, people are a big deal, huh?
Tex: Yeah. I also think that learning who to trust with your heart over the years is important. We’ve seen that. I know there are a couple of women in each place where we’ve lived… We’ve moved quite a bit in our ministry. Knowing that even though it has been years since I’ve seen some of them, I can go back to them and still share… I know that confidence is kept, and that helps. They help me in my walk with the Lord and learning how to be a better wife.
Sammy: Okay. They did a good job, I have to say. Dave, what about you?
Dave Tippit: Yeah. I think that as God reaches us in different ways… My spiritual journey was different from your typical one, so he speaks to me similarly to the way he did when he reached me. For me, the spiritual disciplines (God’s Word, prayer, just being in fellowship with the body, and all of those things) are vital. They’re like how if you were to have a kitchen, you would need some of your main ingredients and some other things, the staple foods you would have.
You’d have to have those things. I think my relationship with God grows even further when you add in some of those other spices and other things. You have this variety of who he is. For me, that’s what I call earthy spirituality. It’s finding God in everyday life, in the common things, in nature, in science… I hated science in school when I was growing up, but since I’ve become a follower of Christ, I’ve loved it.
I learn not just for the sake of knowledge or some kind of intellectual identity but for the sake of wanting to know who God is, because I think he expresses himself through the arts, through science, through helping others, through humanitarian things, through just all of the different facets of culture and society. Being able to experience God in those different arenas of life has enriched my relationship with God so much.
Sammy: I think that for me, prayer has been just incredibly important. God has had to remind me how important prayer is. We talked earlier about my not having a voice and spending that two weeks in silence. I just really believe that was God speaking to my heart and saying, “Sammy, shut up. Sit down. Listen. Spend some time alone with me.” Then when I had cancer and I was diagnosed with it, people were sending me books and DVDs.
I just knew, “No, that’s not what it’s about. I know what this is all about.” It was one of the greatest times of growth in my life when I had three months I couldn’t travel or do anything, and the Lord just said, “I want to meet with you. I want you. I want some time, some quality time alone with you.” Having that time was really important for me. What are some things that hinder us from growing? What keeps us from becoming those people we should be?
Tex: Wow. Self-centeredness, wanting my way rather than maybe seeing what the Lord wants, is a hindrance. Not spending time with Jesus is a hindrance because we become like who we spend time with, so if I’m not spending time with him, he’s not going to be shown through my life. That reflects over to our relationships.
Sammy: Yeah.
Kelly: I think it’s insecurity for me. I can become paralyzed by just my insecurity and not take on any new challenges or do anything I feel like the Lord may want me to do. I just feel like there have to be people who are better at that than I am, so I can just get really insecure and compare myself to other people or not move forward in my faith. Those are some of my weaknesses.
Dave: I think that it’s busyness for me. Just keeping the priorities and the rhythms of life God has embedded within creation needs to be a part of my life. If I don’t have that, if I don’t have those rhythms, I can easily lose the right perspective and just stay busy. This is why I’m here.
Sammy: I’d say that is probably the biggest thing for me: busyness. When you have a lot on your agenda, you have a lot on your heart, you want to go for it. Yet Jesus told his disciples to go and preach the gospel around the world, yet he said, “Wait in Jerusalem.” There’s that balance of going and waiting. So often we go to one extreme or the other rather than…
One of the things I’ve found is that to become like Christ is to become balanced. I mean, he’s the most balanced human being who ever walked the face of this planet, so we need to learn to become balanced. Let’s wrap all of this up and say what one thing we would say to encourage someone to grow in their faith to become the person God wants them to become.
Dave: Show up. Be present. Realize he’s there. Just have that perspective. Going back to that busyness thing, I just think there’s so much coming at us every day. Just be present with God and know he is there and he is with you. He’ll never leave you. Make that a declaration of your prayer and your life, and just start to see him in all of the different places he places himself.
Kelly: I have a heart for moms who have young ones. That can be a really isolating time. I would encourage you to find other women who are walking that same season of life, just be real with them, and have those connections to help you through those hard seasons.
Sammy: Tex?
Tex: I would say that to older women. As you get older, don’t isolate yourself but begin to maybe disciple or be a mother to others who don’t have family around. Help with their walk in Jesus.
Sammy: The bottom line is we all need to grow and continue growing. In the Christian life, you never arrive. It’s always a journey, and we need to continue to grow in our faith.