Good Enough

Author and podcaster Jamie Ivey says all of us go through seasons in life where we're trying to figure out who we are and what we're supposed to do.

And she says that season can go on for a long, long, long, long time. The same question that people are asking in their 20s. And so I think that for us who are, you know, 40 and above, we can look at the 20-year-olds and be like, oh, you're just trying to figure out who you are. And then we're like, oh, so are we. Like, we're still trying to do this as well.

So I don't think it's like you ever show up. And you're like, oh, I know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. We're on this journey all the time.

I figure out what has God asked me to do today and then tomorrow and the next day. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com.

The journey of self-discovery is an essential first step as we figure out how we can best accomplish God's assignment for our lives. We'll talk more about that with Jamie Ivey today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. You know, I remember the day that Mary Ann and I got married. I hope you remember that day, Bob. That's a pretty big deal. I have some distinct memories of that day. One of those is that the pants of my tuxedo split right before the wedding ceremony. Seriously?

You've never told us that. Are you doing like the splits back there or what? I bent over or something and all of a sudden I heard this rip and we had to get that fixed quickly. And it was all covered up.

It was good. But I also remember being back in the back 30 minutes before the wedding and thinking to myself, what if she changes? I mean, I'm about to pledge my life till death do us part to somebody who might change a year from now. What do I do? Might change?

Well, see, that's what I was thinking. What do I do if she's a different person a year from now? And there was a song on the radio. This is a terrible song, but it was on the radio when I was getting married. It's sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along. Oh. And I'm thinking that what if the right one comes along three years from now and she's changed?

How does anybody do this? Bob, have you told Mary Ann about these thoughts? She knows all about this. And it was like God said, she's going to change. You're going to change.

I'm still God. I got this, right? We're going to get through this. And I was thinking about that in the context of what we've been talking about this week, because we've got Jamie Ivey joining us this week. Jamie, welcome back.

Thanks, guys. Jamie is a podcaster, an author, a speaker, a mom, a wife. Her husband, Aaron, is the worship leader at Austin Stone in Austin.

They've got four kids, one bio, three adopted, right? Yeah. And you talk in your new book, which is called You Be You, you talk about learning to embrace who God made you to be. But there's a part of the book that says, but don't just settle for who you are. God doesn't want you to just stay who you are.

He wants you to be someone more than you are. Yeah. I had a conversation with a friend a couple of years ago and she was talking to me and she worked at a church. She worked in ministry.

She was phenomenal writer material for women. And what I could see, she was just killing it. And I had a conversation with her and she told me she was quitting.

And I was like, you're quitting? And she said, I looked in the mirror recently and I don't like who I'm becoming. And I was so taken aback by that because from what I could see, she was doing all the right things.

She was doing so much for the kingdom, benefiting so many people. And she said, I don't like who I'm becoming. And that really, it hit me and it struck me because I thought, man, how many times in our life are we doing so much?

And we're doing and we're doing. And then we look in the mirror and go, wow, I don't even know who I am anymore. Like, who am I becoming? And it made me think like, I want to spend the rest of my life becoming more like Jesus.

And so hopefully Marianne changed because she was becoming more like Jesus. But there is this sense of as people who work in Christian ministry and we do things for God, quote unquote, that's what we do. But if waking up one day and going, man, do I love like the attention and my job and the success or whatever it might be?

Or do I really love God? Just saying, I want to know you more, you know? And so that changes who we're becoming when we had this idea of I want to become more like you at the end of the day, no matter what. I think it's interesting what you're talking about, Jamie. I was in a meeting this past week and a guy was up talking about his vision for the future. And I remember sitting there going, I don't know. The last time I felt like somebody, a preacher, a minister, a full time Christian worker was leading and it was so apparent. It was an overflow of his walk with God. And I was sitting there watching this young man do this. I'm like, hmm, that's rare and it shouldn't be rare because that's and you talk about in your book.

It's like, what is success as our Father Christ? So talk about that. And you probably thought, I'll follow you wherever because this is amazing.

Yeah, you want to. Yeah. You know, just talking about success. And just a couple of weeks ago at our church, a pastor was preaching and he was going through the Beatitudes and he said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And I've heard sermons on all of those. Blessed are the ones. And this hit me because he said, what do you hunger and thirst for every day?

And I thought if we had to write a list, it's not going to be pretty some days, you know? And so it just hit me like, do I hunger and thirst for righteousness more than success or fame or friendships or love or good kids or fill in the blank? And I've thought a lot about that in the past couple of years with this idea of success. And I think sometimes in Christian circles among women in particular, success feels like a super scary word. Am I allowed to be successful? What does successful actually mean? Is this okay? If I'm successful, am I prideful?

Am I full of myself? All the things. And so I specifically put that word on the front of my book in the subtitle because I wanted to kind of take some of this kind of scariness away from it. Because here's what God has shown me in the past couple of years. Success is good. But I need to reevaluate my idea of success because the world's standards of success, it's like a moving target. It's constantly changing.

Okay. You're successful if in your career, if you hit this and then you hit it and you're like, I'm amazing. And then they say, well, that's actually not the best thing anymore. So you now have three more levels to meet or, you know, whatever your career might be. And I decided I want to be faithful.

And I think that when we're faithful with what God asked us to do, no matter the world standards of success, God looks at us and says, you're successful right where you are. Like, that's what I ask you to do. A particular example that I often think of is I've been podcasting for six and a half years. About four years ago, the platform that hosts my podcast, where you would find out how many people listen to your show, they emailed and said, okay, so we've been measuring this all wrong. You had X number of people listening. Now it's this.

For my particular show, it was half. So I wake up that day and I think I'm a successful podcaster. By the end of the day, I'm a failure. I need to quit. I am the worst person that's ever lived. Why do I even have a job?

I'm not recording any more shows. Okay, so I can be dramatic, too. But you see, what I'm saying is that idea of success, I thought I had it. With one email, all of a sudden I'm failure.

And over the next couple of days after I, you know, moaned and groaned to my husband, Aaron, and he politely listened and pointed me back to the gospel all the time. But I kind of had this moment where I thought I didn't change anything about my show from the day before to the day after that email. Nothing changed. My mission is still the same. My show is still the same.

When I create a show, I need it to be encouraging, inspiring and point people to Jesus. And so that email changed nothing about my faithfulness to what God asked me to do. And that was good for me because numbers matter in work.

Let's not be dumb here. You know, like people have jobs. You've got to get paychecks and you've got to meet quota, all the things. Numbers still matter in my job. But I'm not consumed by it because I know if I'm going to be faithful to what God asked me to do, I'm going to be successful. And you can translate that to anything if you think, okay, well, a successful mom is one who her kids always obey the first time.

They always say, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. And then they grow up and they're in ministry and they change the world. But what if that doesn't happen? What if my child chooses to walk away from the faith?

Or what if they become an addict? Or what if, am I now a failure as a mom? I'm not a failure if I was faithful every day to love my kids the way God asked me to love them. Or, you know, if you're thinking like a woman, if I'm a successful woman, then I'm like, woman of the year in my community. Like we have a party at the end of the year and they're like, you're the best woman that this community has ever seen.

If that's success, then good luck because that just doesn't happen. But faithfulness would be, I'm going to love the community that God's put me in. And so it was this readjustment for me that brought me so much satisfaction and so much freedom to do exactly what God asked me to do, even if it looks different than what she's doing. So here's my question as we think about who you are and who you are becoming. Should a person be content in who they are and who God made them to be? Or should they be discontented, wholly discontented, H-O-L-Y, discontented that they are not who they ought to be? You mean if they're walking in disobedience to the Lord? No, I'm just talking about an average Christian who looks at their life and they go, should I be content that I am who God made me to be? Or should I be discontented that I'm not who I ought to be? Well, I think that if you're not living the way God wants you to live, like you're living in sin and you're throwing out the opportunities that he's given you, the places he's put you. That's a story where you can have like some discipleship come in and some mentorship to maybe get you back on track. But if you're just looking at your life and going, man, it doesn't look as good as hers. I'm going to be discontent.

That's not OK. But if I'm looking at Jesus and going, wait, I'm not like him yet. So there's some level of discontented that I'm not who I ought to be, even as a faithful follower of Christ, even as somebody who's not in open rebellion or knowingly violating some scripture. I'm trying to live a faithful life, but I'm still so far from who I ought to be.

So should I be happy with who I am or should I be discontented with who I ought to be? Well, I think Paul tells us the verse that we all know. Well, it was on the back of my letter jacket when I was in high school and I didn't even love Jesus.

So there's that. Philippians 4 13. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's this verse that we're like, yes, I can do it all. I'm good.

I can do it. We see athletes. I mean, it's just we like it. But what we forget is that Paul wrote this from prison. And the verses before that were saying that I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger and abundance and need.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. So Paul is saying, how do we fight discontentment? It's because I can fight that because of Jesus. So on this side of heaven, I don't think that we're ever going to be fully content in who we are because we have we're broken. We have sin. There is evil in this world that we have to fight against. There are forces at play here that are bigger than what we see in the flesh. And so we are not content here because it's not our home. But can we know how to do things in need and abundance and how to be brought low and how to abound?

Yeah, we can. And Paul tells us, because in all those things, I can only do it through the strength of Jesus. And so can I be content in hard situations on my own?

No, only with Jesus. And I think there's a balance that you're talking about is what you're getting at, Bob, is I don't want to be satisfied with where I am. That's another word to say, you know, I want to be content and I don't want to lay in bed at night like I'm not as good as I should be.

I understand the gospel and I am accepted in Christ and my identity is in Christ. But at the same time, it's like I want to be a better husband tomorrow than I was today. And that's not a bad thing. Like, oh, if I don't reach that goal. No, it's a motivating thing. I want to be a better dad. I want to be a better man of God, woman of God than I was yesterday. Am I content where I am?

Yes. Because I'm in Christ. But at the same time, I'm pressing on, Paul said, to the goal I'm pushing. I'm racing that finish line. Running the race that's set before me, you know. So it's that balance, right?

Yeah. There's a hymn we sing at church from time to time that includes the lyrics, two wonders here that I confess, my worth and my unworthiness. And I remember singing that for the first time and going, that that's profound. My worth. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I'm created in the image of God. I'm accepted in the beloved. I can go through all of the things that declare my worth and then my unworthiness. I'm not worthy of any of the blessing I've received. And like Paul in Romans 7, there are things I hate I end up doing. O wretched man that I am. So there ought to be simultaneously in us.

Both and. I am in Christ and I am accepted in the beloved and I, God rejoices over me for who I am today. And yet he is not satisfied to leave me who I am today. Matt Chandler would often say it's OK not to be OK.

It's not OK to stay there. Yeah. And that's I think when we talk about you be you, which is what you're talking about in this book, the whole last third is about who you are becoming. And that becoming is the ongoing trajectory of our life where we never sit down and say, well, I'm here. I've arrived.

That's right. I think that's my continual prayer is, Lord, I want to fulfill everything you put in me. I want to use all of my gifts. I want to be free. When Jesus said, so if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. In John eight, like I know that he wasn't saying, oh, and you're going to be free. I mean, I want to be free and not shackled by lies or my past or the pain that I've gone through because he has renewed me. He has redeemed me.

I am a child of the king and I see so many women stuck and not fulfilling what God called them to do. And even if it's just being a mom, that they're satisfied and content in this is what he's called me to do. And this is success. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that we're on that journey. It's a big word, that sanctification is that through the Holy Spirit's work in our life, that we're continuing to look more like Jesus every single day.

And that should be our desire. That was the whole point of like, I don't like who I'm becoming. I'm not becoming more like Jesus. I'm just working for him. And there's nothing wrong with being a Christian ministry.

Everyone at the stable is. We want to work to see more people know Jesus. But at the end of the day, am I being sanctified to look more like him? I have to wake up every day and say, God, that's what I want.

And listen, God's going to do that in different ways. But we have to be proactive in that as well in our lives. And you're saying that's success. It is success. That's the definition. Yes.

And so we cannot continually look around and think, I'm not successful because I don't have what they have. And this is not a woman thing. This is everybody thing.

This is a middle school thing. This is everybody looking and going, they're good. I'm bad.

They're successful. I'm a failure. Instead going, God, what have you asked me to do today in my life, in my community, where you planted me, in my church? I'm going to serve you here and it's going to look different and that's OK. And I think that takes an ongoing relationship and dialogue with God because we can get into situations where we forget. I was in a meeting with these amazing women, strong, smart, gifted. And I can remember sitting in there like, this is good. This is really good. We're going somewhere.

We're going to do something great. And then as I was listening, I thought, whoa, there's so much better than I am. And then I thought, oh, and there's so much younger. It was just sudden.

It came on just like that where I kept going deeper and deeper. And by the end, I thought, I really have nothing to add. I really have nothing to offer.

I'm old and out of date. And what happens to us, especially as women, when we start feeling that, we start to become smaller and we lose our voice. We stopped using our gifts.

We stop opening our mouth to say this is who God is and this is what he's doing. And I went out of that meeting and now that I'm older, I have this ongoing dialogue. I get in the car and I'm talking to God, my father, and I say, Lord, what happened in there? And I remember him just kind of prompting me of like, let's just talk about the gifts that these women had. And I went through it and I was saying, did they have this and this? And I felt like he's saying, and isn't it great? Isn't it great how I gifted them? And then I felt like he said, and don't forget what I've gifted you in, Ann. Don't become small. Just become who I've created you to be and remember who I am in you. That makes a big difference. So that continual dialogue with God, have you found that to be important?

Monumental. Because what happened to you in that room was Satan getting into your head and saying you can't do what God's asked you to do. You're not successful. You're not successful. You have nothing to bring to the table.

You're not gifted. It's the accuser. Exactly. Exactly.

And he's throwing those errors at you. And that's why we have this battle. I mean, that's not just flesh and blood. We have this battle for our souls. And that is he wants to get into your head and say, you don't amount to anything.

You're not good enough. And so I have a friend. She told me this one time and I've never forgotten it. She had these note cards and I've seen people have scripture note cards forever. But what she did was on one side, she wrote the lie she believed. On the other side, she wrote the truth of scripture to combat that. When she pulled those note cards out of her purse, it looked like they had survived the Titanic.

I mean, they were torn and messed up. And I said, oh, you read these a lot. She said, I read these every single day. She's in a battle, man.

She's in a battle. And you know what? I think we don't take it serious enough. And so had you left that and not had that conversation with God, the next meeting, you believe the same thing. Right. The next meeting, you believe the same thing. You're not in the word.

You're not putting the truth in. And then before you know it, you're not fighting. I'm out of the race. I tell women, listen, if you're fighting, that's a good place to be. Nothing's wrong with you because you have to fight the enemy. If you're not fighting the enemy, I'm going to be a little concerned, you know? And so be in the battle. Be in the fight.

Put the truth. That's what it says. God's Word said it pierces. It gets to our soul. It changes us. God's Word. It's living and active.

And so use it to fight the enemy. And you also say, toward the end of your book, you talk about soul care and community care. I also thought even as Anne Sharonette and you, Jamie, it's like, you got to have somebody you're telling these struggles to, besides God, not underestimating the power of prayer and talking to God and being honest, but what other woman knows, not guys, I'm not talking guys, guys, guys, what other guy knows, but what other woman knows for women. Because I've done what you said before, Jamie, you know, I've walked off the stage like after a sermon and thought I was faithful. And that's success. And then an hour later or a comment later that didn't like what I said or didn't think it was a 10, it was a 9.8 even. You know, you go from, oh, I was faithful to, oh, it wasn't good enough. And so success becomes, did they like it? Or I pop up somebody else online, which is now a real deal. Everybody in my congregation is not just going, you're great, Dave.

They're going, you're not as good as that guy. And so it goes back to success. And if I hold that just to myself and I never tell Bob or a friend and go, dude, I'm struggling right now. And they go, dude, you're being faithful. So you talk about soul care, but you also talk about community care. Oh, I went through an intense discipleship in my church in 2011. And those girls that I went through that with, they are the girls that I could say anything to. I mean, I could look across the table and say, I read my Bible since December 31st of 2015. It's not true, guys.

But they would love me and they would counsel me and they would point me to Jesus and they would tell me what is true. I was listening to a podcast the other day and there was a man on there who was talking about our digital age and how we're so consumed with it. And he said, when's the last time you sat around like a bonfire, you sat with a friend and you told the secrets? And he didn't mean secrets as in like gossip, like the stuff you don't want to say out loud, the secrets of your soul. He said, you've got to have the person you tell the secrets to. And it hit me so hard.

I had just had lunch with a friend the day before and I had just cried to her and told her some hard things that were going on in my life. And I sent her a message and I just said, thank you for being someone I can tell the secrets to. You have no idea what that means to me is that I can tell you the secrets and you love me and you push me to keep going. You push me to faithfulness.

You do all those things. I say that we will, as Christ followers, get to the end of this world still following him because of his word, the Holy Spirit and our people. That's how we're going to make it. I can't make it to the end if I don't have those secret holders, the people that I can be real with. And if someone's listening and they do full time ministry and they're in front of people, I'm just going to say that it's imperative that you have a secret person because you can't survive public ministry without it. I've always said as a woman, I need a woman ahead of me, beside me and behind me.

That's good. Like I need someone that's older than me or at least more spiritually mature that I can go to when I need insight, when I can't figure something out. I need my peer who's walking beside me and everything. And then I need to be pouring into someone.

So good. And I let my friend in on a secret that I had. And I had said, you know, sometimes when I speak, I'm so attacked by the enemy when I'm done that I go into hiding. And I'm in my house and I am just being battered by Satan's lies. And so I had gotten done speaking and I had really revealed a lot of abuse that I had been through.

And I felt incredible remorse, like, why did I share that? People probably think I'm this, this and that. And my friend calls me. I don't answer the phone. She texts me. I don't answer the text. And then she leaves a message and she says, I know that you're hiding because you told me this is what you do. I don't answer it. Two days later, she comes to my house.

She's knocking on the door and said, come out of hiding. I know you're in there. And I didn't want to answer it.

I just wanted to wallow in it. And I opened the door. And it was the worst and the best thing that I did to tell her that. Because she brought me out and she said, I need to tell you the truth of what you've been listening to. That you're hearing Satan's lies. I didn't even tell Dave all that.

I'm hearing about it right now, honestly. But, you know, I've said on here before as well, there's two ways to live. Conceal, reveal. Conceal equals death. Reveal equals life.

And it's just, it's biblical. If you keep it in the dark, the dark winds. If you have the faith to tell a trusted friend, including God, you are going to step toward life. And I would say to the listener right now, you've got a secret.

I think God's saying today's today. And if you don't have a friend, you've got to find one. And don't blame, you know, nobody cares about me. It's on you. Go find that friend.

I bet God's already brought you one. Tell them the secret and you're going to start the step toward healing. That is such good counsel. And, you know, we started with me talking about my fear that Mary Ann was going to change after we got married. And she did and I did. What I didn't consider that day is that she would change for the better. And she's saying the same thing about you, Bob. That in Christ, if we're pursuing Christ, she's better than I could have imagined who I was marrying on that day.

And that's the point. It's almost like the subtitle of your book, You Be You, should be You Be You, but don't stop there. Keep going. Be the you God made you to be. And I got to add this because I know somebody's listening and they're going, yeah, but my wife didn't change for the better.

My husband didn't change. That's what we do. We go right there.

And you know what? It's not about your spouse. It's about you. You be you and you be the better you can be. Jamie, thanks for the book. Thanks for the conversation.

This has been so good. Thank you. And I hope listeners who have not yet tuned into your podcast will start tuning in. You can go to our website, familylifetoday.com to find a link to Jamie's weekly podcast called The Happy Hour. You can also get a copy of Jamie's book. In fact, we're making it available this week to those of you who can help support the ongoing ministry of family life. If you'd like to invest in the marriages and families of people in your community who listen to Family Life Today and people who are listening all around the world, finding practical biblical help and hope as they tune in, you can make that investment today and request a copy of Jamie's book as our thank you gift. Her book again is called You Be You. And we're happy to send you a copy when you make an online donation at familylifetoday.com or when you call to donate at 1-800-FL-TODAY.

We are grateful for your partnership with us and your support of this ministry, and we hope you enjoy Jamie's book, You Be You. And we've had a lot of Family Life Today listeners who have been wondering, when is the weekend to remember going to start back up again? And we do have plans for weekend to remember getaways happening this spring.

Of course, all of that is fluid based on what's going on with the pandemic, but we're hoping to have some of these events later this spring. And in the meantime, our team has been working to develop a resource that is designed to help couples continue to have meaningful interaction with one another, even when you can't get out for a weekend away. We're developing something called the dates to remember date box, and David Robbins, who's the president of Family Life, is here with us. David, share with our listeners a little bit about the purpose for this date box. Yeah, well, it goes back to a few months ago when our team was embracing, OK, we look forward to getting weekends to remember up and running again as soon as possible, but we're embracing that's going to be a little longer than we were hoping. And our team just said the magic of a weekend to remember is that time together over timeless truth, where you look each other in the eye and you have conversations that were prompted that you probably otherwise wouldn't have. And that is what our team has created with this date box. You get it in the mail, you unpack three unique moments that form and craft conversations that that you probably wouldn't be having.

And it's done in a creative and fun way. And our whole goal is to certainly frame up some timeless truth that encourages you, but really get you looking at one another's eyes, talking about intentional things in this very unique season. Well, if you'd like more information, we're going to be talking about this more in the days ahead.

But you can find out more about the dates to remember date box when you go to our website, familylifetoday.com. David, thank you for that. And I want to encourage our listeners to be with us again tomorrow when we're going to acknowledge the fact that this Sunday is sanctity of human life Sunday and talk about the value and worth and dignity of every human life beginning at the moment of conception. I hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Bruce Goff, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.