Your Life, Less Complicated: Lisa Whittle

All right, I know what you're gonna say, but I want to hear you say it out loud. Oh, no. What competes in your life for Jesus?

Like, more important than Jesus, what is the biggest competitor to Jesus being the most important person? You. No, it is not me.

You said that on purpose. What do you think I'm gonna think it is? You're gonna say grandkids. Yup, it is.

And before that, it was probably kids. Yeah, why isn't it me? Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. I want it to be me. It's always somebody else. It is you, honey.

It's just they're more demanding, but you are always at the top. Whatever. You're just- What's yours? What competes with you?

What do you think it is? Golf. Golf?

It's not golf. If I was good, it'd be golf. Softball? Softball? Tennis? Tennis?

Sounds like all I do is play. What is yours? I thought stuff. Stuff and comfort. Anyway, why are we talking about this? We have Lisa Whittle in the studio.

She wrote a book called Jesus Over Everything. Lisa, welcome to Family Life Today. We're so glad you're here. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Lisa, we need you.

The subtitle's called Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First. I mean, we hear that. We think, oh, that is a struggle. Well, I want to know what yours is. I mean, you know, we sort of bared our souls here. Come on. That's right.

Lay it down. Yeah. Family would be mine for sure. That is at the top.

Kids, obviously. You're like your husband and your kids? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

For sure. Three kids, right? So you're saying your husband is first.

Three when I was married. Now you're making me look better. Oh, no, no. It's kids. My husband would definitely say, oh, let's be real here.

It's the kids. Hey, your husband's not here. What's his? Oh, his would probably be stuff, you know?

Yeah. He likes gadgets and things like that, electronic stuff like that, which I don't really care anything about cars. He loves cars.

Not that he owns a bunch of cars, but he'd love to. It used to be shopping. For you? Yeah, for me. Or for him? For me. Sorry.

Yeah. I went back to me. I toggled back to me. Are you going to follow me, Dave? I'm following you.

I'm with you. Anne was with me on that. She was. Everyone that was listening went back with me on shopping. Yes. Were we like, oh, yeah, we're going to talk about shopping?

Let's talk about that. Shopping. Because I love bargains. I also love decorating my home. I wanted to be an interior decorator at one point. And so for me, it's art for me.

It really is. People are like, oh, sure, it's art. No, but really, like dressing and clothes and things for my home, it's like art. It's a creativity for me.

So anything that's great can also become bad at a certain point. And shopping for me became that. And I was reading your book thinking, what in the world?

Because you went on a fast, a shopping fast. Explain this, though, first, the title. Yes. Talk to us over everything.

Please explain what that all means. Well, you know, it really became something that, first of all, I'm a bottom line person, Dave. I kind of, in my own life, because things are, there's so many things that are coming at me every day, whether it be on social media, statements that are thrown at me.

I'm a pastor's daughter, so I've heard a zillion messages my whole life. And I think I got to the point where I thought, what is it? What do I really want to live?

What do I really want to know? What is the statement that not only do I want to be the mark of my life, but what really matters here? And it was the phrase, Jesus over everything.

Like, he has to be over everything. That's where even the subtitle of the book, Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First, came, because as he is in that space of Jesus over everything else, your life becomes less complicated. It helps you with decision-making.

It helps you with priority order. So, things become much more clear. And for me, I think there's been a quest in my life to have clarity, to have a real litmus test for making decisions.

What is it going to be? Because there's so many things thrown at you. And so, I like to bottom line things in my life. And to me, this has become the number one bottom line decision-maker everything in my life. Jesus over everything. Is this about Jesus? Is he over this?

Is that what the decision is right now? And it has helped me in so many ways. Well, Lisa, why don't we do that? I think a lot of us can say those words like, oh yeah, I want Jesus over everything. But in the practicality of living out our lives, we don't do it. And what are we afraid of?

Well, okay, you want me to be really honest? I think we think it's not enough. I think we feel like in some way we can manage it better. I think we think, well, yeah, but I can have a little bit of control. That's why I wrote the first chapter of The Land of the Deadly Overs, because in some way, if we're having a relationship issue, in some way, if we want to manage our own PR, people's perception of us, right, or something going on in our life, there's some part of us that thinks, I can help this situation.

I can make things better. Let's say somebody invites us to a party and we don't go. Our first go-to is not usually, you know, I'm just going to stand in the space of saying, hey, I can't come tonight. I'm so sorry.

Thanks for the invitation. It is, let me over explain this. Let me explain why I can't do that, especially for women. I'm speaking to women especially. We think, I need to explain all the reasons I can't go, because in some way I think that it's not enough to just stand in the space and allow God to be over this relationship that I somehow feel is out of my control. So I'm going to over explain it. I think we feel like it's not enough that it's just a statement, Jesus over everything, but it's actually a biblical idea from Colossians 1, that He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. And it is priority order for our entire life. Is that what led you on your shopping fast?

You know, I wish it was that spiritual. Hey, you got to explain the shopping fast, because when I read it, I'm like, you went on a one year. I thought maybe a one month. One year?

You know, it didn't start out as a one year. I'll be honest about that. Here's how it started out. I felt like that my relationship with the Lord was not where it needed to be.

So I started investigating why that could be. I mean, I've been a believer since I was six years old. I've loved Jesus my whole life, but I have also loved me. And that's been a rub of my life. For all of us. For all of us, yes. But I just started thinking, you know, why do I not feel like my prayer life is where it needs to be?

Why do I feel like there's a breach between the Lord and I? And I had since, through some series of events, there was one incident that I had where a girlfriend came over and I was going to go on a TV show and I needed some help dressing for this TV show. And she's a fashion consultant. And I remember she came over and she was in my closet and she said, Oh my goodness, Lisa, you have so many clothes. And I remember feeling embarrassed and thinking, I do?

I have a lot of clothes? And so that was kind of like a one little sign, right? And then I went overseas and I remember being in a different country and seeing just the lack thereof. And it wasn't like I didn't know there was a lack, but it was seeing it in my face that I came home and I just looked in my closet and I looked at the surplus and it just felt gross.

And so there was just different events that happened leading to this place. And the Holy Spirit had begun to speak to me about my shopping, that was kind of just to fill in that moment what I felt like was lacks in my own emotions or if I was bored or whatever, where sometimes people might fill that with eating or watching Netflix or whatever the case may be. For me, it was, I think I'll just go to Marshalls. And the thing that was puzzling about it a little bit, Anne, was I buy things on sale as I don't buy expensive things.

So I'm like, this is harmless. I'm buying three things and I'm still only spending $38 or whatever the case may be. But what I had begun to suspect was that it might be coming between the Lord and I. And I knew there was only one way to find out, and that was to be without shopping for a little while, to see.

I said to the Lord, OK, I will do this for six weeks. I will not shop for myself because, Lord, maybe this is coming between us. I feel like maybe that shopping is coming between us and I don't want anything between us.

And I don't know if I'm doing this right, but this is what I suspect. So I'm going to, for six weeks, I'm not going to shop. And for me, what were my points of problem, I'll say, was buying things for my home or buying things for myself in the sense of clothing, shoes, hats, things like that. So I'm not talking about deodorant.

I'm not talking about things like that because that's not a problem for me. Those were necessities that I would buy when I just needed them. These were things that I didn't need more shirts. I didn't need more hats.

I didn't need more pillows. So for six weeks, I didn't buy anything for myself. OK, what was it like? Hard.

It's almost like a fast. When you feel hungry, you pray, what did you do when you wanted to go shopping? I would not allow myself to go to any stores physically that were a trigger. At the time, online shopping wasn't that big of a deal for me because this was back in 2013. So that wasn't as prevalent. There were a few times that I would, after the six weeks, which I'll tell you about that in a minute, but when I would go, I would have things in my cart and I would have to abandon my cart and just leave it, which I know is irresponsible, people.

But it was better to do that than to go buy something. But I'll tell you one of the things that I did was I wasn't going to announce it publicly. At the time I was blogging, I wasn't going to announce it because I wanted it to be a private thing between God and I. But He really put it on my heart to put it on my blog so that I would have accountability.

So that if someone in my city who maybe knew who I was or read my blog were to see me, it would be embarrassing. So I actually did put it on my blog for accountability that I was going to do this fast. But what happened after six weeks was the Lord said to me, you're not done. And I said, OK, I'm not done. And it ended up that I knew that He wanted me to do it for a year.

And I swallowed hard and I said, OK, we'll do it. So for a year I did not buy anything for myself in those ways, for the house or for me for clothing. What did it feel like when you were done? How did you know you were done?

Because the year was over and I felt closure on it. I felt the reason why I knew I was also done was I felt that the grip on me had loosened to the point where I now could be in recovery mode. And I had a system, the Lord and I had really worked through what was going to be like after, because we knew that after that, I knew that after that there needed to be a process, what I would do then. And I still live by the process. When I buy one piece of clothing, I have to get rid of five others in my closet. So it has become something that I live with now that is very important for me.

And I've had to go on shorter fasts from that time if I felt like I was slipping back into it. Oh, see, that's so good and it's also so convicting, but it's asking the question, Lord, is there anything I put in place before you? Yes. I'm in Chronicles right now and I'm reading all about the kings that had so many idols and they were worshiping idols. And I just wrote in the margin of my Bible, God, what are my idols? And for you, it was shopping.

It was like, oh, this is my quick fix. And I think we all have those fixes that we go to that thing before we go to Jesus. It's been very powerful for families. And this book has been given out to a lot of kids that are going into college because it is such a core faith practice.

And it's something that we don't talk about enough. I mean, this is a biblical idea. It's also, you know, talking about idolatry and I talk about Joshua 24 in here. It's so important, you know, when Joshua was giving this sort of last speech, which is in Joshua 23, I believe, but in 24, you know, he's talking about the fact of, hey, if you want to know what to do because the people are saying, oh, you know, we want to serve the Lord. We are determined to serve the Lord.

He's saying, okay, put away your idols and serve God. That's what you do. I mean, listen, the thing is all day long we can come up with strategies, but it is about putting away our idols to serve God. And it's very simple. It doesn't mean it's easy, but it is very simple.

You know, that's why I talk about, and I use the word uncomplicating. It doesn't make our life easy, but it does make our life less complicated when we have priority order right. And priority order is everything of the faith. It is literally from where else we go, whether it be in our marriages, whether it be in our families, whether it be surviving in this difficult world, this is the core.

If we don't have priority order right, we're going to struggle in every other area of our life. You're an author, you're a blogger, you've been writing Bible studies for women for years. What is it when they hear these principles of this book, what is it that they have resonated with the most?

You know, that's a great question. I mean, these chapters are really interesting because I talk about everything from service over spotlight, steady over hype, commitment over mood. I think the last chapter that I inserted in this book was a chapter that I didn't want to write, but yet I felt the most compelled by it.

It was holiness over freedom. That chapter has continued to be the one that people ask me about the most, talk about the most, share about the most, because it is probably the most important chapter in this book. I talk about my own choice not to drink alcohol in that chapter.

I didn't really want to talk about that because people have a lot of different opinions about that. And I wanted to make sure that I wasn't shaming anyone in their choice whether to drink or not. But it was about the idea of holiness and what I wanted people to understand, that it wasn't this process of strict rules and regulations. That it was all about the better life and that it was all about having so much freedom in your relationship with Christ that you actually are choosing to do things that your freedom would allow, but at the end of the day, it doesn't make you more holy. And so you forego those things just because the better life is the freedom life of holiness over here. And I wanted people to understand what that was.

Freedom of the Spirit, freedom in the Spirit, all of those things, that chapter continues to be the most compelling. And I am the most changed by my own study of that. It's almost like when you were talking about your shopping fast, I'm thinking there's so much study now on the brain science and what's happening. You had developed a neurological pathway of this is where you go to get comfort. And instead, you did it for a year, it's like you form this new neurological pathway of you went to the Father.

You went to God to fill those needs that maybe your shopping need would fill. And I'm thinking that about us, like I think so many of us just naturally go to what's comfortable or what we've always done. And you're saying, no, when you choose Jesus over everything, He has a way of shaping and changing things, and that can be scary. Yes, it can be scary, but at the same time, it is the way that we experience freedom in our life. The best of freedom.

Yes. And also, I think a lot of us are living with lives that feel very complex. You know, I can't think of a person that I've talked to in the last six months that doesn't say, my life is very complicated. I just feel like this is a mess over here, and this is a mess over here. And again, our life is still going to be hard because John 16 33 says, in this world, there will be trouble.

That is not an if statement, that is a when statement, right? But we know, of course, the second part of that verse that take heart, He's overcome the world. The thing about Colossians 1 17 through really 20 is the idea that priority order is His idea, and that's the way that our life will work the best.

This is not a Lisa Whittle idea by any stretch. It is the fact that He says, if you put me in first place, the rest of your life, the rest of your decisions, the rest of the things that you do will give you an ease that other people don't have. They will make your decisions easier. They will make your relationships different.

There will be a different type of perspective. And I'll tell you, one of the great struggles of writing this book was, how do you put Jesus over everything into chapters? That's kind of hard. Listen, I mean, I'm a glutton for punishment. I write hard books.

I will just tell you right now. It's not easy, but this is such an important thing that I knew I had to write about this. So for me, I thought, what are we really dealing with here? What are the things that people find complicated in this day and time? And I think we find it complicated to be honest. We find it complicated to be committed to something. So that was another chapter that I think was very important, the commitment over mood, because most of us have these temporary bursts of faithfulness, and we call that really a win. And it's the idea of commitment over that.

Like, how can we have that? Because in this day and time, it's going to take commitment, not our mood, not these temporary bursts of faithfulness to God. And so I wanted to break it down in chapters where people could understand what a Jesus over everything lifestyle looks like. And it won't be perfection. We will not be perfect in this. But as we put Him in His rightful place where He belongs, these things fall in line in a different way. And it also reminds me of Matthew 6, which I know you know well, where Jesus says, if you seek first He and His kingdom, all these other things. And it's interesting where He identifies in that culture are still the things in our culture. We started there. The shopping fast was probably about what am I going to wear and where am I going to live?

How am I going to be taken care of? I mean, I don't know if women view it this way as men do, but when I think Jesus over everything, one of the things I immediately think of, probably because I'm a pastor as well, is money. I mean, especially in our world in America, we're very wealthy.

Even though we don't think we are, we are. And as a pastor, I knew for 30 years 80% of my church does not give financially. 20% give sacrificially.

Most of them don't. And probably a lot of us would say Jesus is over everything. But if we don't give, I think it's like a fast.

It's like it shows us, oh, this is what really is my God. I'm unwilling to give five, 10. I mean, we hear 10%. If I ever preached that, people would get mad. I'm like, God says keep nine and just give me one out of the 10 I give you. And people are, is that an indication?

I was like, okay, that's one we got to look at. 100%. I mean, I say this in the book. We say a lot of things, but our life tells the truth. I mean, our life tells the truth. And I guess for me, a lot of this comes down to very plain and simple things.

What do you want in your life? Do you want your life to continue to be complicated? Do you want to continue to have decisions that are really tough to maneuver? I just think that when you start talking about things like priority order, Jesus over everything, it becomes very simple.

It becomes very practical. And of course, Satan would love for us to think in much more complicated terms. Well, this is so hard for you to understand what to do over here and how do you do this and how do you? He is the master of confusion, right? God is not that way. And so these things that God has put in His word for us are for us. They are for our simplicity. They are for our life. And so, sure, I mean, money is really important, obviously, and it is not in and of itself a bad thing, as we know. But when it becomes a God over our life, I mean, we have seen the destruction that it can cause.

Same with sex, same with shopping, same with food. You know, in and of these things, what, I mean, God has given us the beauty in all of those things. You're listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Lisa Whittle on family life today. You know, Ann's got a few thoughts on thinking you know more than Jesus and tandem bikes.

You'll want to stick around to hear how those things go together. But first, Lisa Whittle has written a book called Jesus Over Everything, Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First. You can get your copy at familylifetoday.com. Just click on today's resources or you can give us a call at 800-358-6329.

That's 800 F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And some guests that we had on previously this week on Family Life Today were Shanti Feldhahn and Dr. Michael Seitzma. They've written a book called Secrets of Sex and Marriage, Eight Surprises That Make All the Difference. We'd love to send you a copy of that, along with Family Life's online course called The Nearly Complete Guide to Better Married Sex. You'll get both as our thanks when you partner financially with Family Life. You'll help more families hear conversations just like today's, conversations that point to the hope found in Jesus Christ.

You can give at familylifetoday.com or again, you can give us a call at 800-358-6329. That's 800 F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. All right, here's Anne with thoughts on tandem bikes and thinking we know better than Jesus. I'm a visual learner, and so I usually have visual ideas that come to my mind when we teach about stuff. And maybe some of our listeners have seen this illustration that I use a tandem. And I talk about before I knew Jesus, I was in the front seat of that tandem. And when I heard the gospel for the first time, I was 16, and I wasn't really sure what that looked like. I'm like, yeah, I want Jesus in my life.

Get on the back of the tandem, Jesus. And that wasn't really going well because I was controlling my life. I was making the decisions. But the day that I was fully surrendered, it's the Romans 12 one of lay your bodies before God is a living sacrifice. That was scary for me because I didn't know that he was a good God yet. I didn't know if he was a loving God. I thought he might make me marry a pastor, live in Detroit.

You never know like God, who knows what he's going to do. But I'll never forget the day I told God, I am all in. I don't want anything before you. I want to be your servant.

I'll serve you and love you as the best I can the rest of my life. And man, when I got on that back seat of that tandem and I put Jesus in the front, for a while, like, I didn't like where he was going. I didn't like where he was taking me at times. But then, just as you said, Lisa, I started to realize, oh, he loves me. He knows me. He created me.

He knows what path I should take. And there was a freedom in that. And I think every day of my life, when I wake up, my prayer is, God, I give you my life. I give you all of me. I want you to be before everything. And there is joy and freedom.

It's not easy, and it's not easy to put him there because I think sometimes I know better than Jesus, but I don't. Tomorrow, Dave and Anne are joined again with Lisa Whittle, where she goes over the changes and miracles that happen when we place Jesus first. That's tomorrow. On behalf of Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.