Stable Vs. Flighty

Jennie Allen: Bible teacher, founder of IF:Gathering
April 19, 2022

Jennie Allen

Bible teacher, founder of IF:Gathering

Today we are talking about taking care of what God has given us and living with integrity. Lets Go!

I just want to say, Hey, thanks for sticking with me. I know for many of you, you have been listening for a long time. You have been listening for months, maybe even a year and a half, two years, however long we've been doing this. And some of you are brand new and we are so glad you're here. We have so much fun here. I just love, love, love this community. And let me tell you why, because I haven't said it in a while. This is a place where I feel like I get to disciple a lot of people, and that is my passion. And that is my heart for me. I feel like you're in my living room and we're walking through scripture together and we're talking about real issues and how to apply these things. Just like I do with the girls. I disciple in my living room and, and somebody reached out to me last night. 


Actually I was speaking somewhere and they said, Hey, they came up to me afterwards and said, Hey, do you ever disciple or mentor people? And I was like, you know, I do, I have a group already, but I'm maxed out. And here's the reality. I didn't tell her this, but, but I'll tell all of you this, this is my way of discipling you. I would love for you to be my living room. That would be way more fun. I would see your eyeballs. We would have a lovely time. I would make you cookies. I have the best place I get snickerdoodle cookie dough and I would make them for you. You know, I don't make it myself, but you know, I cook them and I would do it for you. And we would have an incredible conversation about God and faith. But reality is I can't have all of you in my living room. 


And this is a way for me to feel like I can. And I pray that this is encouraging you discipling, you, causing you to grow causing you. Maybe if you are someone who's curious about God or maybe hurt by the church, I hope you've found a safe place to, to grow and to consider God again or to consider the local church. Again, these are my dreams. These are our hopes. And if you're here and you are a strong believer, but, but maybe you live in a small town. I hope you feel like this is your family and your community. I know we're not in person. And I know we can't, you know, eat cookies together, but all that to say, I just really value this. And I really value you. And I thank you for listening. I know I will never get over. How many of you listen? 


We look at it every, you know, few weeks we'll look at the numbers. And I mean this in the last 30 days, we have had a million downloads. This is wild. I not in my wildest dreams. Did I imagine a podcast that and a YouTube that would reach that far? So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being part of this journey with us. 

Okay. Let's go. We're talking about being stable versus flighty. And I don't know about you, but this is hitting a little too close to home. I am ADD many of you know that I have talked about that in other episodes. I am flighty. I just am. I forget people's birthdays. I forget people's names. I am forgetful and I sometimes am scattered and I don't drive really well. I'm not a great driver. I've got a lot of things that define flighty for my life. And my husband would not sit here and go, no baby, you, you aren't flighty. He would absolutely not. And, and not say anything, but he would not. And, and all the people in my life would, I mean, I've got coworkers right now helping me record this. And I'm sure they're back there going, yes, she's very flighty, but here's what I can say. I don't want to be. And I don't want to settle for that. And I've worked really hard to not let that define me. And we're talking about being a healthy human and we're taking different compartments of our life. And, and this one really what we're going to talk about is putting our head down and doing what we say we're going to do and how powerful that is in a culture where largely a lot of people are flighty. A lot of people are distracted. 


OFF THE ROLLERCOASTER 

A lot of people are staring at their phones more than doing what they're supposed to do. And so we're going to talk about what that looks like for us as we follow Jesus and live a more healthy, full life. But I got to start by being really honest and saying, you know what? This is a struggle for me. I'm not super stable. I'm up and down every day I come home and my husband looks at me and he's like bad day. And it was, you know, and it's all over my face. And then the next day, it's like a great day and I'm excited and I love work. And that's kind of how I am. I'm just wired that way. I'm wired to live on this kind of rollercoaster, and I'm going to be convicted with all of you as my point. All right, let's look at scripture 1 Thessalonians 4. 

And I'm gonna start with verse 9 here. Now, concerning brotherly love. You have no need for anyone to write to you for you. Yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. Basically, he's saying, I don't need to tell you this. You know this, you got to love one another. You've got to take care of one another. You've got to esteem one another. You've got to appreciate one another and lift each other up and encourage one another. It says another versus head. He basically says, this is so obvious. I don't even need to say it. I'm going to say it anyway, because you know what it's hard to do, but it's obvious now in our culture today, it should be obvious as well. We aren't very good at it, but let's look at what he says next, because it's not what I would expect. 


Apostle Paul to say, he says for that, indeed loving one another for that indeed is what you're doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you to do this more and more, and this is what he says next, but we urge you brothers to do this more and more to love one another more and more and add to your love and aspiration to live quietly. I feel like all these verses, I think we've talked about these verses on the podcast before. I think these verses were written for this generation. You ready? It's only going to get worse or better, depending on your view to aspire, to live a quiet life, to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. Yes, we have definitely talked about these verses before in a different context, I am using them today because I think this is a vision for how we are stable people. 


And these verses lay out a way to do life with stability rather than flighty up and down, crazy living. So number one, live a quiet life. What does he mean? Often the apostle Paul throughout these letters that he wrote to local churches. He often says things about busy bodies, gossips people not controlling their tongue. He saw that everybody was in each other's business, which is adorable because you know what? They all lived on top of each other. They all were in pagan societies where they depended on each other as believers. And yet they still were getting in trouble. Y'all they were still getting in trouble, just like us. They were still hurting each other and causing trouble. And so I think what he means by live a quiet life. He obviously didn't, wasn't referring to social media, but he was talking about don't cause trouble. 

A MORE FUN WAY TO LIVE 

Like don't go round running your mouth and stirring up conflict and causing things to happen that caused destruction, mind your own business. That's one way I know that's what he's talking about, because he basically is saying, Hey, put your head down and take care of your stuff this morning. I posted on Instagram and I talked about circles and I talked about how I assume the best about people, because it's a happier way to live. Now I know that I know I'm not dumb. I know that there are plenty of times that people have ill attention to me. But what I know also is I can control my circle and I can think about that. Or I can just be like, you know what? They're probably having a bad day. I can assume that they probably aren't mad at me that they probably forgot to include me in that group text to go somewhere fun. I can just assume the best and not make it drama and not cause trouble. I can mind my own circle, mind the circle drawn around me and my business and I can choose joy. I can choose to still like people that offend me. I can still choose to be grateful for relationships in my life. That aren't perfect because I can make the choice to assume the best. And it's such a more fun way to live. It is such a more fun way to live mind your own business, mind your own circle, and to work with your hands. Now, what does he mean? Does he mean we all need a manual labor job? No, he means get busy. He means a lot of the trouble we get into that causes us to be flighty and scattered and irresponsible and to not cause thriving to happen in our lives has to do with the fact that we are lazy and we are board and we are looking for trouble. We are looking for drama. One of the reasons I assume the best about people is I'm just too busy to analyze it. I've got too much going in a day to give a lot of my mind space to what someone else thinks about me, what someone else did or didn't do. If someone else likes me or doesn't I don't have, I don't, I just don't have the margin because God has given me tasks. I have a row in the field of God's to sow, to plant, to harvest. And I am sticking to my row and I'm taking care of my business. I am working with my hands and my life to build something beautiful and that God would be pleased with. And I really don't have time to look at everybody else's rose and think about it and compare and wonder because my row is, is full and busy. 


And some of you are thinking, Jennie, that's great. I would love to be busy. I would love a vision for my life. I would love to do something like IF:Gathering and write books and all that. I don't have those opportunities. Yes, you do. You have opportunities. Good works that God has prepared in advance for you to do. I know this because scripture promises it. He promises that if you are a believer, then he prepared good, works in advance for you to do for the kingdom to grow. And that might be in the midst of your job. That might be in the midst of your neighborhood. That might be in the midst of your school, your college campus, that will be somewhere. 

DO YOUR JOB  

I have a friend that she was very anxious and very, very anxious and about to get on medicine. And before she got on medicine, she told me she was like, you know what, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna organize my life because I feel really scattered and I feel really bored. And I, I just don't think I'm thriving. So I'm gonna organize all that. And if on the other side of me organizing my life, then I, and I'm still this anxious. I will get on medicine. I promise. And so here's what she did. She started working out. She started spending time with friends. She started, she joined a small group. She started a job, a bigger job that was more demanding. And all of a sudden, I don't even know what's happened, but she's not even talking about medicine anymore. Now she's talking, my friend is talking about, um, her job and her relationship with her coworkers and her goals of where she wants to be. 


And our eyes kind of lifted from chaotic circumstances that were disorganized to a more structured life that, that had a flow and her kids are thriving and she's thriving. And it just, it's funny. I don't think the job cured her anxiety. I'm not saying that certainly there's a time for medicine, but I do think structure played a part in causing her to not be all over the place and to have more rails in her life, more expectations in her life to get out of bed and to do the things that God laid before her to do. And it gave her a lot of purpose. It gave her more people in her life. She wasn't so isolated at home all the time. And I just believe that there is a way to thriving in these few verses that so beautiful and so simple. And it's do your job, do your work. 


And I'm not talking about necessarily going to get a job. Some of you are stay at home moms and your hands are full don't. Don't hear me saying that. I am saying that is a job. And, and what is the job? What is the work in front of you? And to do that well with all your heart as unto the Lord and, and to stay busy, that there is something about work that God intended for us, whether it's wiping off breakfast tables or teaching a Bible study on your campus or being employed by Chick-fil-A. There is something about building beauty and taking chaos and bringing order to our own lives and to other's lives. And so when we're not doing that for our own kids or our own home or, or our workplace or our college classes and campus, when we're not doing that, I do think we are actually choosing more chaos in our lives. 


MIND YOUR PLOT 

And this is how it ends so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. He's saying don't be a burden show up, do your stuff, take care of yourself, live a quiet life, put your head down. Don't gossip. Don't be petty. Mind your business, take care of your row that God's given you and outsiders are going to look in on your life and they are going to be moved towards your God. That's what he's saying is don't be a burden to anyone take care of your business and thriving will come. We don't want to be flighty people. And some of you know what I mean.  And I am speaking from the flight easiest, one of us all, but you know what I've done? I've worked hard. I've worked. I work hard. I would say every day to keep my commitments to show up. 


When I say, I'm going to show up to not overflow a schedule with everything I want to do, but to say no so that I can do the things that I know I'm supposed to do to show up for my kids, to, to be there when they get out of school, if I can be and to ask about their day and to mind my little plot that he's given me to take care of my little circle, my little business that he's given me. And when we do that, well, outsiders look on and say, I respect them. I noticed that it's different. They pay their bills. They take care of their people. They love people, real people that they do life with. They, they show up and to be that kind of person causes other people to want our God. And when we're not, it causes people to not want our God. And we need to be honest about that. This matters being a healthy person. It's not just about our own personal happiness. It's about reflecting God. It's about being an ambassador of Christ that we show the world Christ love. We show the world Christ integrity. We show the world Christ work at that because we are his ambassadors. We are the extension of him. So this matters that outsiders would want to be like us would want to be with us and would want our God