Lisa Harper: Real Life (LIFE Today)

[Music] the following program is sponsored by friends of life outreach international and then we're both wobbly like you know two sailors on a ship that's going down and i ended up falling a little bit on top of you um and then after is it okay if i say what you said oh go for it why not so i mean that you're so just we're supposed to be there and elegant instead we're writhing in the mud lisa harper shares about life and obsessively grateful undone by jesus genuinely happy and not faking it through the hard stuff kind of 100-day devotional next [Music] hi i'm sheila walsh welcome to life today i'm so glad you stopped by and you're going to be really glad too that you tuned in today i got a letter um technically i guess not a letter i got it on my facebook page from a teenage girl and she said my mom keeps buying me these devotional books and honestly i think they're so boring is there anything else you could suggest and i said boy do i have the book for you um my guest today is lisa harper so first of all welcome you i can't like my cheeks are cramping i'm so happy to be with you i miss you all the time i miss you lisa and i used to work together um at women of faith and so then we travel together every weekend i got to spend i think 10 years of my life every weekend by your side which is the only reason i'm not incarcerated right now we got into a lot of trouble but i i feel like so much of my growing up and even god preparing me to be a mom is due to you i'm just indebted to you and i just think you hung the moon so thank you let me tell you why this appeals to every woman from eight years of age to 88. belly rings to bladder control problems exactly i couldn't have said it better myself and i wouldn't have put it that way but there you go okay so it's called life and obsessively grateful undone by jesus genuinely happy and not faking it through the hard stuff kind of 100-day divorce it's so brilliant let me talk to me what was the genesis of this for you i almost blew us up it was the beginning of covid and i got you know where we live missy and i live beautiful out in the boonies and and all of a sudden was like you know i travel for work and it was like well okay these long months are stretched in front of us and i'm not a good couch potato so i thought i'll just do a little light landscaping and you know i'm single and so i have chainsaws and i thought i'm just going to cut down this tree because it would look better with a bush there because i had just time on my hands and i'm sawing this tree at the bottom of this tree with a chainsaw and i you know me i'm a little bit of a delayed responder and so i i just thought that's odd and i you know i had the safety glasses i was you know had worship music but i thought that's odd i didn't know this chainsaw through sparks and then right as i thought that i smelled propane and i was like i mean i i cut through part of a propane line and i thought you know after the you know the emergency crews came and everything and told me i almost blew us up i thought you know i probably need to harness some of this energy over this being discombobulated by you just the whole world changed and i sensed god saying lisa you think this season is tumultuous but if you'll look back over your life you'll see that every valley you've walked through i was sufficient and i thought i'm just going to go back and kind of mine the chapters of my life you know the seasons that we were laughing hard we had tears jumping down our face or or grieving so deeply i ran out of tears i thought i just want to go back through my story and god's story because i really believe it's redemptive from cover to cover and it ended up being a devotional book and and i told my publisher that i just you know i always feel like sometimes devotional books are written by the saints who have it all together and i feel like i've got to like get my stuff together before i even start reading the devotional and i said i want people to feel safe before they open it up so my only non-negotiable was that crazy subtitle because i want the woman who says goodness gracious how could a perfect god actually delight in it and a woman like me that has you know so many mistakes in my back story and so it was it was much more fun than i expected so we we dive pretty deep every devotional has scripture but um but it's fun too a lot of a lot of wonderful times with god whether it was a high or low you know what's interesting for all the years i've known you no matter what you're talking about no matter what you're teaching on no matter what you're writing all the strands go back to your passionate belief in the power of the word of god and i almost felt like this is a safe place for some people who are thinking i'm not sure where to start right i'm not sure how to dive into habakkuk but maybe i could read a story i totally agree with you i think especially in our culture i feel like scripture is either maligned as a as a punitive rule book or it's taken as kind of a spiritual smorgasbord just reach in and get a meme that you can put on social media because it's inspirational and it's like oh my goodness it's so much better than that from beginning to end god is always if you get it if you get the context he's always restraining evil he's always restoring our dignity he is not a mean god he's not a capricious god he's a he's a redeemer and and then he's always pointing us toward jesus yeah now always so i see a lot of people who think the old testament or talk to a lot of people who say the old testament is like god is in a broad librarian the new testament you know his jesus with brett girl hair extensions hugging everybody and and if that were true god would be bipolar that is not who he is he is perfectly compassionate perfectly holy but so accessible all the way through it's just we don't usually take the time to get to know the remember that vh1 story on um show i don't know if they still have it and i'm not advocating it but behind the music oh yeah you know when they tell the stories kind of behind why that song was written i think we don't take the time to go oh my goodness this is a real story it's a supernatural love story let me dig in there because it's amazing it's not boring it's the antithesis of boring yeah now talking about restoring dignity let me take you to day two so day one i'm reading day one my favorite device and i'm like oh this is so beautiful with the real happy please stand up happy spirit then i get to take day two you know i couldn't have that story and not put it out there god would not have let us live that moment if we weren't supposed to share it you realize i have the photographs to prove it you gotta you gotta tell the story i have no no you wrote it you have to tell the story okay you know concise is not my gift so i'll try to make the story because this story could be like a week of shows um if you haven't figured out i am pathologically biased about sheila i think she is just she truly is one of the most amazing people i've ever met my whole life and you're much classier than i am it's like one of these things is not like the other one but we got invited to be the um kind of the hostesses at a at a christian movie premiere and so it was it wasn't a you know it wasn't a hollywood red carpet it was more strip mall polypropylene kind of an event and barry at the time sheila's husband had this just claustrophobic little sports car and so i was in my usual fluffy season so i was like double spanx you were in some gorgeous elegant outfit and we get to the movie premiere and he remember he parked us out at the edge of the parking lot i got a new car near his car i was remembering it even kinder because i love barry so i didn't want to castigate barry in this so he parks us away from the from where the event is but i thought it was so we could fluff and you know kind of get better before we walk up to this exciting event with like 12 people waiting for us but i'm exaggerating so anyway sheila gets out just so elegantly and so smoothly but barry had parked you right next to a grassy median and it had rained like the last several days so you didn't know because all you saw was the green grass that it was so muddy and you were wearing your typical you know four inch heels and she got stuck it was like she was pinned in the mud like a stork and you were kind of flailing oh flailing's kind of mary's not rescuing you he's taking pictures she's taking photos you are my like favorite person and like my my big sister and i'm like i'm gonna rescue you dog on it but i'm packed in the back of this car and spanx so it took me like 13 minutes to get out i think i broke a nail i finally get out to rescue you well i'm always have been bigger than you and i also was wearing heels so when i go to grab you to stabilize you i get stuck and then we're both wobbly like you know two sailors on a ship that's going down and i ended up falling a little bit on top of you um and then after is it okay if i say what you said oh go for it why not send me that you it's so just we're supposed to be there and elegant instead we're writhing in the mud sheila's underneath me and i hear this beautiful scottish lilt hope i'm peeing which i couldn't stop they were laughing oh just crying laughing and so then we have to somehow get ourselves up from this just messy heap and pretend like you know we have it together and walk toward the event it really was one of the most i always have so much fun with you i think the thing i love about you i am obviously a hot mess you don't look like a hot mess you there's just something about you that's so i always feel like there's something about you that's so royal not just jesus but you are elegant but you never ever put up a facade you know there's just this honest i can't make it without jesus do you remember we never even made it into the movie we were like the swamp creature but we tried you had to do that television show remember and they had like the drone and the camera was there oh that's right i thought it was awful i just stood behind you and cackled most of the time but the fact you included it i feel so awesome i was very holy i felt like i could it was a little bit of a stretch but i was pretty sure i could get us to scripture okay so some of the stories are funny but some of them i mean you could call it there's depth here lisa this is a deep profound book um day 62 you talk about um the holiness of helplessness oh yeah talk to us about that yeah um one of my favorite living theologians and i know yours too is dr tim keller and i was studying the gospel of mark and you knew that story where the dad of the sick kid and because my little girl that adores you your aunt sheila but i got to be missy's mom through the miracle of adoption and missy was really really sick when i started the story and so i identify with a parent who's worried about a child's physical health and there's that point where he confesses to jesus when he thinks his son is dying he says i believe in other words i know you're the christ i know you could help but i'm dying today i'm afraid i'm going to lose my son help me in my unbelief and i was studying that story and it was especially resonant with me because of some of the some of missy's health issues and my fear you know i i want to be so faithful and know that god is always good but i am so stinking human that sometimes i forget and i get scared and i was reading a tim keller commentary on that particular story in mark's gospel and he said um and he's such a brilliant theologian and godly man it kind of surprised me coming from him but he said that it is helplessness not holiness that's the first step to accessing intimacy with god wow and i just that slayed me i thought you know sometimes i try to come before the lord with all of my oh whatever little you know power that i have power's a wrong word but competence thinking he'll he'll kind of bless that and it's like he tells me over and over again you come to me with what you don't have come to me with your absolute lack and i will bring vibrancy out of void and said come to me when your heart is in pieces bring all of yourself even the messy scared parts to all of me and i will redeem it and so i do think i think just recognizing the fact that we can't save ourselves can't heal ourselves can't infuse ourselves with with peace when life is hard i think to bring that before the lord and confess our neediness i think that's really critical for us to have a vibrant intimate relationship with god i was telling a friend the other day i said it's kind of like you got to peel off your spanx when you come before jesus don't try to hold your stomach in and act like you have it all together you just go you know me you know he knows the places where i've been so foolish and my faith has been so feeble and yet he still calls me not just daughter but he's like i think you hung the man his his kindness um it just gets bigger doesn't it it does the older i get the more undone i am by the kindness of god it's so beautiful it's almost like the capacity increases and it's almost as if suffering makes space for a bigger picture i think that you know of course the veil the salvific veil between us and god was was torn when jesus gave up his life on the cross and so i want to be careful with semantics but there's still you know paul says we see through the glass stimuli so we have a blurry lens effectively you take human finitude and you try to look at the magnitude of god we can't see him perfectly clearly i do think suffering difficulty pain if we bring that to the lord i think that blur gets a little more clear i feel like the times that i've seen god the clearest have been when i'm i'm honest enough to recognize how desperate i am for him i was um you know i've gone back to school yeah during your doctorate doing a doctorate but just to see jesus you know i believe he's revealed to us through revelation holy spirit and and holy red and so i just want to see jesus bigger plus i'm an old mom missy's 11 i'm 57 and i think it's one thing for me to say honey learning is good it's another thing for her to see me next to her doing my homework but i was in a class with a um this professor has since become he's the head of my dissertation team so i have a brag on him because i want to pass but his whole point over and over and over again he says you have to study the bible with an understanding that god is always in the process of mitigating evil he's always in the process of restoring our inherent dignity as his image bears he's always in the process of turning us toward the true north of jesus christ he was talking about a passage in scripture this was two years ago like my second second class at denver and and he just uncovered this kindness of god in a passage i had understood to be punitive like i thought god was kind of angry in that passage and i was so taken aback i thought i've been studying the bible for 40 years and it just gets better he gets bigger and class was over and everybody left and and i just couldn't get out of my chair i was so overwhelmed that i just began to to weep at the kindness of god and dr howard had forgotten some something he came back in a class and there i say you know this older woman blubbering in his class and he was kind of taken aback he i think he probably thought she needs to be in the counseling track you know not the not studying hermeneutics and and so he was kind of taken aback but he said are you okay and i just said i'm just i can't believe he's even better than i hoped oh wow he'd be and i feel like that as a believer i feel like i'm still you know kind of in the honeymoon season with jesus he's better than ever and god's work reveals that we do ourselves such a disservice when we think this is boring or we only open it up to be dutiful yeah or we use it as a club to knock somebody over the head that we disagree with i'm like oh it's so much better than that so much more liberating coming out of you know 2020 last year was just you know it was difficult very very difficult what does what does the companionship of christ and the places that make no sense do for you i couldn't we had a i told you off camera because i trust you and love you but we had someone very very very close to us commit suicide um just about a month in a covenant and so coveted already you know caused most of us to be so discombobulated at least in our generation it was unprecedented and you know there were just so many personal uh things that were confusing and then globally you're like goodness gracious i can't watch the news anymore i'm gonna you know eat more carbs than i normally do i lived off chips and queso for about six months there but after after this suicide i felt like um you know just the harshness of life had kind of knocked the legs out from under my stool and it was the it was the presence of god just sitting there with me in that sad place he was almost palpable i mean i would sit on my front porch and cry while missy was still asleep just grieving this this death of someone i love very much and it was you know there's the times that you go i i can almost see him i can't see him with my eyes but in my in my spirit god is right next to me in the southern rock and chair just with me the witherness of god i couldn't make it without the witness witness of god and i because i tend to be a big talker too verbose and i i'm usually running a little bit too fast sometimes it's in the dark and it's in those quiet spaces that the you know the static in my head gets quiet enough to actually recognize his presence so i don't think he's bigger in the dark yeah in the hard places i just think you see better in the dark i know that every single one of you you're gonna want this book not just for yourself you're gonna want one if you've got children if you've got nieces and nephews you're going to want this book and i'm going to tell you how um you can get it we're going to send it to you but first of all i want to help ask you to help us with something um last time i was in africa just the the lack of clean water was astounding and i think when jesus washes your eyes again and you see better you want to make a difference so let me ask you would you watch this it's been absolutely devastating to see how hard these people work to get water and it's not a clean source of water i've talked to so many mothers who've had to bury their children it's something that should never happen i'm so sorry [Music] foreign [Music] this is water that will kill you this is death water hi pam [Music] [Music] [Music] this is not water that you can live from we have to do as much as we can help us take the gospel help us demonstrate the gospel as we bring them water for life [Music] i can't imagine what it would be like to be a precious little girl and what brings you to tears at the thought that perhaps you're going to die the same way your brothers or sisters died but i cannot i mean honestly in all of our trips i haven't spent time with one family where that's not a reality i've been with mothers who have buried three children i mean one of the mothers in fact you saw her in that piece gave me the privilege of walking with her to where she buried her girl and you know it was just what do you say what do you say when the only reason these children are dying isn't because of some bizarre disease they got and something like cancer or heart disease or something that you just could not possibly have seen that coming but it was simply because they're drinking water that is contaminated and but it's like a sophie's choice do i give my children this water that's contaminated knowing that potentially it could kill them or do i give them no water and there's nothing worse than watching a child die off thirst you know it's it's easy to watch something like that and think well why don't they just go to the village that that is the village when we drive in these jeeps for hours to get to the most remote parts to bring the good news of jesus but i kind of feel like to have the right to bring the good news of jesus to these people you have to take care of what's killing them first how can you tell them about the water of life when they've never tasted water that's clean in their life this is something that james and betty have been passionate about for so many years and so our commitment this year is to put 350 fresh wells drilled in over 20 nations i'll never forget the day when we were in zambia and we we drove on from what had been a devastating situation to a place where there was as well and it said given by the viewers of life outreach international i went bonkers i literally danced around the well it was just so glorious because of you so let's do again we've broken this down to make it doable because this is the last week we've made this commitment and we don't want to drill one less well than we've promised so for 48 that provides clean water for 10 people not for a month for life 144 30 people some of you might be able to actually put in a complete well maybe your sunday school class or your business do you know that for 4 800 that will drill a well that will provide clean water for life for a thousand people where else could you do something like that that will make such an impact and the great news is our partners are on the ground at the moment and they're just waiting they're just waiting for the fun so we can say go ahead drill the well so please would you call now would you call that number on the screen and just give what you have and if we all do that we can change the world in jesus name dirty disease-filled water how desperate would a mother need to be to consider giving this contaminated substance to her child for many mothers and their families living in extreme poverty this is their only choice but with your help they won't have to make this choice ever again mission water for life provides clean disease-free water for thousands of children and their families giving them a life free from the fear of death with your gift today you can help drill and establish 350 water wells this year your gift of twenty four dollars will help provide clean water for five children a gift of forty eight dollars will help provide for ten seventy two 72 will provide for 15 and 144 will help provide life-giving water for 30 people for a lifetime with your gift we'll send you speak your name devotions and declarations on the reality of jesus filled with stunning imagery these 40 encouraging devotions by laini renee serve as a reminder of the power of jesus name with your gift of 100 or more please request the be refreshed picture this beautiful ceramic picture is decorated with proverbs 1125 it is sure to make a lovely addition to your table or home finally please consider a gift of 1200 to help provide water for 250 people for a gift of 4 800 to help sponsor a complete well and you may request our brand new inspiring bronze sculpture divine servant this is the last week please call write or make your gift online thanks so much if the lines are busy keep calling keep calling and get through and remember for any gift at all we're going to send you lisa harper's book life and obsessively grateful undone by jesus genuinely happy and not faking it through the hard stuff kind of hundred-day devotional it's just awesome if you're able to give a little more um a hundred dollars will send you this beautiful be refreshed picture um it's a great reminder to pray and because scripture says that those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed remember this is the last week of our drilling water wells so we need you to call if you haven't called yet you've been holding back for a bit let's do it let's make sure we bless people in jesus name and lisa i just want to say this is fantastic and i'm so grateful that god put us on the planet at the same time at the same time i know what a gift for me all right so i'm sheila walsh from james betty and all of us here at life today we love you so until we see you next time i'm sheila washing goodbye god bless you [Music] [Music] tomorrow you are not forced to follow god you're not a puppet you're a living being in creation with freedom to choose life today is made possible by the supporters of life outreach international your gift will be used exclusively for the exempt purposes of life the ministry features specific outreaches as examples of the programs it supports and conducts gifts are considered to be without restriction as to use unless explicitly stipulated by the donor the ministry is a member of the ecfa

Channel: lifetodaytv

Views: 9,087

Rating: 4.9056602 out of 5

Keywords: life today, james, robison, christian, television, tv

Id: 0U3tyaqt9Oc

Length: 28min 31sec (1711 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 10 2021