Episode 5: What Flourishing Means to a Flailing World

Carol Anne Beck: God may call His people to be missionaries, pastors, and teachers. And He also calls people to be filmmakers, moms, firefighters, and mechanics. Here’s Erin Davis.

Erin Davis: We need Christians in every sphere because, as God’s people flourish, it touches the lives of others. We may not even understand it.

Carol Anne: Welcome to The Deep Well with Erin Davis. I’m Carol Anne Beck.

I hope you’ve experienced a new level of flourishing in all of life while listening to this series from Erin. She’s been in Psalm 92, exploring that concept: flourishing. We’re calling the series, “Among the Sequoias.” Here’s Erin.

Erin: Well, this is the last episode in this series. And if this is the first episode of The Deep Well you’ve ever listened to, or you’ve listened to all of them, I want you to hear me say that it is a joy to get to teach you.

We’re going to jump back into Psalm 92. In fact, we’re going to finish the psalm together. I’m going to pick it up at that verse we’ve read so many times in this series, verse 12, then we’ll read it through the end.

The righteous flourish like the palm tree
   and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the Lord;
   They flourish in the courts of our God,
They still bear fruit in old age,
They are ever full of sap and green,
   to declare that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.    (vv. 12–15)

Remember, our thesis comes from verse 12: “That the righteous flourish.” And we just learned that that is a lifelong calling, that we can still bear fruit. What good news! In old age we can be ever full of sap and green. That’s evidence of life and flourishing in the body of a tree.

So, really, to apply Psalm 92 is to sign up to a lifelong commitment to flourishing in every season of our lives. It is to see flourishing as a part of your God-given mission. Let me show you:

What was the very first command in Scripture? You find it in Genesis 1:28.

And God blessed them (the “them” there is Adam and Eve), and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

God’s intent for His children has always been that we would be fruitful and multiply.

Let’s take a jump from that first command over to Matthew 28:18–20. There we find another command.

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

In Genesis 1 we’re called to be fruitful. And here in Matthew there’s another kind of fruitfulness. We’re called to be on co-mission with Christ (That’s why it’s called “The Great Commission”), to rescue the world from sin and darkness.

Every once in a while I need a reminder—maybe more than once in a while—that the lost are hell bound. They’re trying to live this life without the hope of Christ, without the help of the Holy Spirit, without the blessings of God’s Church.

And the bottom line of all of our stories is that we were not flourishing. It’s not just that we were dying. Scripture says we were dead. And Jesus gave us a new life in Him.

Last Easter someone tweeted, “Let us eat and drink for yesterday we were dead.” I can’t stop thinking about it. God has taken us from dead, hell-bound sinners, trying to do life our own way. And He has given us instead a new, flourishing forever, that we can flourish in Him now as a foretaste of what He has waiting for us.

And here’s why this really matters, here’s why I hope everything we talk about on The Deep Well matters: because we can draw a really straight, really short line from Psalm 92, “that the righteous flourish,” and the gospel and the impact that God’s people can have on the world. Because when God’s people flourish, mankind flourishes.

Just imagine for a moment if in the blink of an eye all of the Christians were suddenly taken out of the world, maybe just taken out of your own community, out of your own workplace, imagine what would happen?

We need Christians in every sphere because, as God’s people flourish, it touches the lives of others. We may not even understand it. When God’s people flourish, mankind flourishes.

God’s intent is that we would learn to flourish in Him, because of Him, and that would bear fruit in our lives. And that the lost would be drawn to that life in us and want it, too.

I asked that question earlier in the series that I had to really wrestle honestly with: is there anything in my life that a woman who doesn’t know Jesus would want?

She doesn’t just need something else to be invited to. I assure you she doesn’t need something else to do. She needs life. She needs something that’s going to help her flourish.

We see this beautifully illustrated in the book of Acts. (We’re jumping around a little bit in this episode.) I want you to turn to Acts 5:12–16.

Now, we sometimes elevate the Church in Acts as the perfect church. I assure you they were not. The Church in Acts was made of sinners just like yours is. The culture they were living in was corrupt, just like yours is. But they are an example that when God’s people flourish, those around them flourish.

Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's Portico. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

This is not a fairy tale. This really happened. And this is during the time when the apostles were alive. They had seen Jesus. They had been with Jesus. And now the Lord was birthing the Church. Jesus had been crucified and all that cultural turmoil. This is in this generation.

And Christians are starting to gather together, and the culture around them is going, “We don’t know what’s going on, but it seems to be good for us. We don’t understand why the sick are healed, but we’re going to bring the sick people and just lay them by the Christians in case a shadow might fall on them and heal them. We don’t understand. The life they’re living seems very strange to us. But somehow we’re drawn to be near them.”

And if you follow your Church history, you will see that the culture did shift as the Church was being born.

Do you see what’s happening here? As God’s people were flourishing in their gifts, which I’ve said over and over, is not the same as the carefree life. They were facing intense persecution, and that was only going to ratchet it up for a while.

But as they began to flourish in Christ, the world held them in high esteem. Why? Because they made things better.

All of the institutions that help humanity flourish can illustrate this. Health care, for example, started by Christians in response to the Bubonic plague. As others were running out of the cities because of that black death, Christians were running in. You can trace a very long line to our current health care system.

Education. It was started as a means to teach children God’s Word.

These systems of our society, if you look, many of them were born out of Christians being what Christians are supposed to be—Life and Light.

Is it only Christians that benefit from education? No.

Do you have to be a Christian to be treated in a hospital? No.

But when Christians begin to flourish, when we begin to be life givers, it impacts those who don’t understand it, but they begin to flourish, too.

We are called to be fruitful and multiply. And our fruitfulness, our flourishing helps lead to the flourishing of mankind and leads to the spread of the gospel.

I want you to flourish. I do. I want me to flourish. I do.

But what I really want is the Bride of Christ to flourish so that we can be the salt and light we’re called to be. Not just so people look at us and go, “What’s up with him?” But so that they are drawn to us, and that they may experience life.

We are to live our lives in such a way that those who are without Christ want what we have. And I’ll say it again: it’s hard to do that when we’re barely getting by.

These are not do-better verses, but Scripture does call us to flourish, not flail, for the sake of the gospel.

Part of the way this psalm has marked my life is in realizing that a commitment to flourishing, which is lived out in really practical daily ways, is to not tolerate that blinking light on the dash.

I don’t do that just for me. I don’t just do that for my children. I do that so that I can do everything else God has called me to do. And God has called me to share the gospel with a lost and dying world.

I am committed to flourishing so that I can serve Jesus even in old age. And not just so that I can win some serve-Jesus trophy. But so that my life would have impact on others.

After you’re done listening to this episode, take thirty seconds and take a glimpse into our culture. I don’t care how you do it—pull up your phone, turn on the news, walk around. And be reminded: it’s a bunch of dead people out there, and we have life.

When we flourish, we shift from victims of our circumstances, victims of our culture, to victors. Scripture calls us “more than conquerors.” You don’t live as a victor in survival mode. Victors are flourishing.

This is a soldier mentality. I’ve got a job to do, and I need to be in fighting shape to do it.

You know, soldiers don’t just train to train. They train for war. We commit to flourishing, and we accept God’s call to thrive, not survive, so that we can be in the battle for as long as the Lord lets us, so that we can be effective soldiers for the gospel.

There’s a Kay Arthur quote that I love. She says, “There is no retirement in times of war.” When did the times of war begin? Genesis 1. When will the times of war end? When Christ returns.

So there’s no retirement for the times we’re in. And we’ve got to be in fighting shape.

Look back at Psalm 92, verses 14–15 again. “They still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green.”

Again, there’s a call to flourish in every season of our life. Why? Because in so doing, by some mystery, we declare who God is with our lives.

Maybe you’ve stumbled onto this podcast under the category of spirituality, and you like what you’ve heard so far. You like this idea that God wants you to flourish. It is so attractive.

I’m sure a version of it could be heard on other podcasts in this category, who, maybe, unlike me, don’t believe that the Bible is inspired by God and the authority for our lives.

There may be some other teachers under that category who don’t think that Jesus is the only way to true lasting flourishing. And if that’s how you got here, I want you to know I’m so glad you’re here.

But I take you back to that sequoia grove I keep describing. If we look at the trees as representations of us, I want you to know it’s not just knowing Jesus and submitting your life to Him will move you from a sick tree to a healthy tree. It’s not just that Jesus or the Bible can help you grow and stand a little taller.

No. We were dead. We were decaying on the forest floor, and the problem with dead things and dead people is that they are dead. They are incapable of bringing themselves back to life.

And so, don’t just add this to other thinking about how to have a good, happy flourishing life. Jesus takes you from dead to alive, not from alive to more alive, or healthy to more healthy.

In Ephesians 2, Paul describes your condition without Jesus this way: “You were dead in your trespasses and sins” (v. 1).

You had no hope of a flourishing life. No hope of producing any kind of lasting fruit. No hope of resembling anything like giant sequoias or cedars of Lebanon.

Without Jesus, all those magnificent trees could ever be is monuments of something you have no hope of ever becoming.

But I have good news: The good news is the good news. Ephesians 2:4–7:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Because of Jesus, we don’t have to stay dead, because only Jesus can make dead things alive again. Maybe there’s some other messages. Maybe there’s some other teachers who can give you a little bit of growth. I’m not talking about a little bit of growth. I’m talking about death to life.

And why does Jesus make dead things alive again? So that we can give Him glory.

I want to describe another kind of tree that brought Psalm 92 to life for me on our trip to the sequoias.

We rented a Jeep, my husband and I. We were going to drive through some mountains to get there. Our flights got delayed. It was late at night, and we’re driving in the dark. We were so tired that we could barely keep it between the lines.

And all of a sudden, a smell hit us in the face—a good smell. I’m hanging my head out the window, and I’m saying to my husband, “What is it? (Sniff sound.) What is it?” (Sniff sound.)

And he was, like, “I don’t know. (Sniff sound.) I’ve never smelled anything like it.”

And for miles and miles it was like a palpable smell. We’re driving through this smell. And when we woke up the next morning, I said, “We’ve got to go find that smell.”

I don’t ever want to not smell that. It was the best smell I’ve ever smelled in my life. And so, we hopped in the Jeep, and we came down the mountain, and then we saw it.

Orange groves as far as we could see, and they were covered in blossoms. There was fruit hanging from their branches. And the smell was so intoxicating.

You can’t tell if you’re listening, but I’m getting choked up thinking about them because I had never before thought about what heaven smells like, and I am now convinced it smells like orange orchards.

And whether God plants me as a sequoia, or whether He plants me as an orange tree, or a cedar of Lebanon, or a palm tree, it doesn’t matter to me. I simply want to give off the aroma of Christ to a dead world because it’s intoxicating.

And so, the righteous flourish, not for the sake of the righteous. They flourish because we must showcase to the dying that we have something worth smelling, worth living.

So it’s for the sake of the gospel that I want you to declare the wondrous works of God. It’s for the sake of the gospel that I want you to stand apart from those who are dead to sin. It’s for the sake of the gospel I want you to serve God’s people and build God’s kingdom, even in old age.

It’s for the sake of the gospel that I want you to take this to the Lord. Maybe you’ll sit in Psalm 92 for years like I have. And maybe He’ll show you what it looks like for you to flourish. So that when the dead come close to your life, they go (smell sound), “What is it? What is it? I don’t want to live without it. I want to have it.”

Let me commission you to a flourishing life. Let’s pray.

Jesus, thank You that You have raised us from death to life. Remind us as often as You need to of what we were like before You.

We had no hope. We had no hope of fulfilling Your command to be fruitful and multiply. We had no hope of fulfilling the Great Commission.

But You have raised us to new life with You, and so I pray for every sister listening that she would be planted in the house of the Lord and that she would be committed to flourishing for Your name sake.

Lord, teach the Church in our day how to flourish so that we can lead the lost to You. In Your name I pray, amen.

Carol Anne: That’s Erin Davis, reminding us that the purpose of our flourishing is to point others to the God who brings dead things back to life.

That’s the final teaching segment in this series, “Among the Sequoias.” If you missed any episodes, you can hear the series again by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com.

While you’re there, you can also get to know other podcasts in the Revive Our Hearts podcast family. That includes Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. Each week day, Nancy will take you into God’s Word and help you know the source of all flourishing. Again, visit ReviveOurHearts.com.

Erin Unscripted

It’s time for “Erin Unscripted,” and I have a really hard question.

Erin: Oh, no. You save the hard one for the end.

Carol Anne: I know.

Erin: That’s okay.

Carol Anne: This one, all of them have been straight from my heart, but this one it kind of hurts a little more to ask. It’s very vulnerable to ask.

Erin: Okay.

Carol Anne: I alluded to it in one of the earlier episodes that the beginning of this year was difficult for me, and I think it was a struggle related to trauma and grief I’ve experienced in losing my first husband.

Now in looking back over the last six months, I really think I was depressed. In the first episode of this season we talked about how the inward man can be flourishing even though the outward circumstances don’t seem to be right.

I mentioned in this episode, though, that we should be flourishing. The Scripture says that the righteous will flourish, and it’s for the sake of the gospel so that we showcase a life to an unbelieving world.

Erin: Right.

Carol Anne: But what about for the believer who’s doing the right things? January, February and March were some of the darkest months I’ve had since my husband passed. I was putting myself in Scripture. I was putting myself under the teaching of God’s Word through church. I was fellowshipping with other believers. I was intentionally putting truth in my ears through scriptural music. And my emotions weren’t following. So for the believer who says, “Erin, I feel like I’m doing all the right things, and I’m not there.” What would you tell them? What would you tell me?

Erin: Carol Anne, I feel like you’ve been reading my inner mail because just this week I said to my husband, “I’m doing all the things. I’m walking, caring for the outer self—like you’ve been talking about. I’m praying. I’m asking other people to pray. I’m in church. I’m singing. I’m searching my heart. I’m repenting of known and unknown sins. And I’m not feeling it. I know the truth of God. I know who He is, and I have no inkling of His presence in my life right now.”

There was a circumstance of interpersonal conflict that has been ongoing. I think when something goes on for a long time, the kind of rah-rah rally that we might have at the beginning, at some point starts to ebb.

So, just to affirm, I think all Christians probably are in that position at some point, so let’s normalize it. You can be a mature follower of Jesus, and you could be doing the things we call spiritual disciplines. You could be operating by the play book, so to speak, and still not feel like you’re flourishing on the inside.

I’m a one-trick pony. This is what I say a lot. This is what I got: you said you were in God’s Word, but I would say “Run to God’s Word.” And it’s because, in this case, what you’ll find there is a lot of folks in that situation.

People who have had the highest of highs with the Lord, sometimes, literally on mountains with the Lord, are followed by the lowest of lows. People who see God in profound, miraculous ways, and then seemingly in the next breath express, “Where are You? Why have You abandoned me?”

People who are on a boat with Jesus and watch Him calm the storm with a word then get the boat to land and question whether He really is the Son of God.

So, you’ll see our humanity. Unfortunately, we don’t shed that this side of glory. You don’t know how much I wish coming to Christ and becoming a new creation, which is real, meant that all evidence of the old creation was gone forever in that moment. That’s not how it works.

I will often pray, “Oh me of little faith.” Because the Lord would say, “Oh ye of little faith” and then rebuke. And I know that’s me.

And so, there’s wrestling. It’s part of being human. It’s why we need Jesus so much.

But I also would practically . . . Somebody listening to that says, “Okay, great. I get it, that it’s normal. It still feels really icky. I still don’t like it.”

I don’t know that I could over emphasize the role of the people of God in those moments. They are not just people we’re supposed to worship with every Sunday and go to potluck dinners with. They are supposed to be the ones who undergird us, who help us, who speak truth to us when we can’t believe truth to ourselves. They’re the ones we sing with. They’re the ones we worship with. They’re the ones we confess to.

Why? Why do we need all that if we have the Lord? Because of this that you’re talking about, that happens inside of our hearts.

And I say to my Christian friends often, “I need you to spoon feed me truth right now because I know my brain is way out there in la-la land, believing all kinds of stuff, and I’m having a hard time knowing what’s truth. So, tell me what’s true.”

And it’s not like they come up with something new I’ve never heard before. But I need to hear it from their mouths. And that’s exactly what I did this week when I had what I call “crazy brain.” I had crazy brain bad. I had done all the things in my strength (listen to the self-sufficiency in there). Nothing. So I called several Christian friends and said, “This is what’s going on. I need you. I need you.” And they rallied.

And so I think we need each other so badly in those circumstances.

Now, nobody can change my internal beliefs or feelings except the Lord. But I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think truth mattered. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think the character of God was transformative. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think Scripture wasn’t just a book we read. It is our life, and it shows us how to live.

So those things really do matter. Man, I long for the day when striving ceases, when these parts of us are fully stripped, and we are the image bearers we were made to be. We won’t be that way here. And so that’s why we need each other so, so desperately.

Carol Anne: You also mentioned in Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply.” It was really intriguing to me that you brought that in. It makes sense, “be fruitful and multiply.” Those are flourishing-type words.

But I don’t think I had ever thought about that passage beyond the context of child bearing. Can you talk more about that?

Erin: Well, that’s good because you’re thinking of it in context. The context there was that the first man and first woman had to literally be fruitful and multiply through child bearing or they would be the end of the human race.

So, it’s always good to think in context at first. But I do think there's an application beyond that. And it doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what Scripture says.

Also there in Genesis, God is giving mankind authority over creation. And that, really, only takes on its full meaning when we get to the New Testament. We see that we are to become co-heirs with Christ of the kingdom. And so, that requires a fruitful world, a place of multiplicity.

I mean, isn’t everything about the Christian life supposed to be multiplied? Can you just love Jesus and never tell anybody about it? I mean, I guess you could, but why would you? And the great co-mission is “Go. Tell. Share. Make disciples. Multiply.”

We talked a lot about our families, Carol Anne because we’re in those years, but there’s multiplicity that happens in families. And that is a good application of “be fruitful and multiply.” But I don’t think it’s the only application.

I hope The Deep Well is me living out, “be fruitful and multiply.” Multiply the message that God’s Word is a deep well. Multiply your passion for God’s Word in the hearts of other women. Multiply.

I mean, I hope women who fall in love with their whole Bible through this podcast and the other things Revive Our Hearts does, I hope they don’t keep that to themselves. And they won’t. You don’t have to worry about that because nobody wants to.

I hope they start neighborhood Bible studies and start walking with a friend and saying, “Ah, I’m reading this in Scripture. What are you reading?”

That multiplicity just is in us once we come to Christ. We want others to know and experience and grow and flourish. So I do think it goes beyond Genesis 1:28. I think we’re supposed to live fruitful lives in every sphere, in every season, because of the fruit of Jesus’ work in our own lives. So, I think it can look like a lot of different things.

Carol Anne: You mentioned in this episode that we can flourish in Christ now as a foretaste of what’s to come. And I know the listeners know that I lost my first husband about five-and-a-half years ago. And there are obviously some things that I still miss about him.

Erin: There will probably always will be.

Carol Anne: Oh, I think so. There are simple things that I miss doing with him, tiny mundane things in the day. We were heavily involved in music together, and I miss accomplishing music with him. I miss fellowshipping in the church with him. I miss singing with him.

And I often think when I’m singing that I am accomplishing God’s glory with Matt still. When I am singing, I know that I am worshiping with Matt. I don’t know what Matt’s doing right now. I don’t know if he’s singing. I don’t know if he’s telling stories to kids. I can guarantee whatever it is, it’s high energy. That’s who he was. And now, in a perfect sense, I can only imagine that he is even more energetic, although I can’t imagine that.

But getting to flourish now in my life, as the Holy Spirit grows the fruit of the Spirit inside me, that we get to share now because it is just, as you said in a previous episode, the shadow in the sense that it will seem like a shadow when we experience the life to its fullest with Christ in glory—worshiping God face to face. I cannot imagine, but how I long for that day.

Erin: Yes, me, too. Yeah, you can’t imagine. Scripture says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined.” So we could spend the next ten hours trying to imagine it, and we wouldn’t get close. But we do know that it will be worshiping. And we do know that everything we’ve longed for here will be fulfilled. And we do know that we’ll be with Jesus.

I’m with you. We both are teary and have sore throats because I long for it. I would go now. I would not hesitate. I would go in an instant. I want the Lord to come today. Every day I’m, like, “Today, Lord? Today? Today would be a great day!”

But He hasn’t come because He’s merciful, and He hasn’t taken us because . . . I don’t know why. I wouldn’t want to try to assume. But everything we do here for His glory, which is really where I hope this season hits people in the heart. Flourish for His glory.

Carol Anne: And we don’t have to wait.

Erin: You do not have to wait.

We can worship Him. We can experience that now no matter where we are, no matter where you are in the trial, no matter where you are in your grief, in your hardship, in your parenting, and in your marriage. Gratitude is a choice. Worshiping Christ is a choice. We can choose to do that today, knowing that is what we will long to do for all of eternity.

Erin: Right. So flourishing today is rehearsal for heaven.

Carol Anne: I like that.

Erin: Me, too. I wish every Deep Well listener could be in the room when we record a season. It really is so special. But for this season, I finished teaching, and a woman in the audience said, “What if we just sang, “I Love You, Lord,” impromptu?

And the whole room started singing. You probably loved it because there were all these harmonies and parts.

Carol Anne: I loved it!

Erin: It was beautiful. So, listen to it now.

I love You, Lord.
And I lift my voice
To worship You.
Oh my soul, rejoice.

Take joy, my King,
In what You hear.
May it be a sweet, sweet sound
In Your ear.

Carol Anne: The Deep Well with Erin Davis is part of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.