Love Hopes

Claire Black: This is True Girl, a podcast for girls and their moms. Together, we’ll explore God’s Truth for us, one drive at a time!

Buckle up! You’re about to grow closer to each other and closer to Jesus! Oh, and today, I hope you grow closer to your siblings!

Do you ever find that your sister barges into your private space without knocking? Or maybe you have a brother that deliberately tries to annoy and tease you?

You might want to invite your brother or sister to listen in today. We’re talking about sibling rivalry. You’ll learn that while it’s normal to have conflict with your brothers and sisters, God wants you to hope for something better!

True Girl is hosted by Dannah Gresh, author of Talking with Your Daughter about Best Friends and Mean Girls. Let’s get moving for season 4, episode 6 titled “Love Hopes.” 

Staci Rudolph: “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

Dannah Gresh: Um, Staci, what are you doing? The mic is on. We’re recording right now.

Staci: Oh, sorry, Dannah! I was practicing 1 Corinthians 13! I’m taking this season’s challenge to memorize the whole chapter pretty seriously, okay?

Dannah: Excellent! Me too! Let’s pick up from there. Let me see if I can pick up from there. “If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.”

Staci: Oh, good job!

Dannah: Thank you.

Staci: I think you skipped a verse, but you’ve got something there. True girl, I hope you’re memorizing with us. It’s not too late to join us!

Ya know, Dannah? When I think about that kind of love—giving everything to the poor, sacrificing my body, but not loving others—well, it begins to hit close to home. Because, are we being honest here today? 

Dannah: Yes, of course.

Staci: Well, it’s easy to go out of my house and sacrificially serve others. But the real test for me is this: did I show love inside the walls of my own house?

Dannah: Agreed. Oh yes. And there may be no harder relationship to live out the love of Jesus Christ than with . . . are you ready for it? Our siblings.

Staci: Do you love your brothers and sisters, true girl? That could be the ultimate test of true friendship. Today, we’ll examine the sixth quality of biblical love found in 1 Corinthians 13.

We're gonna use the same verse as the last episode, just a different part, maybe you remember it? 1 Corinthians 13:7 says: 

[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Dannah: Let’s dive into “love always hopes.” You got a dictionary, Stace?

Staci: Sure do! Dictionary.com defines hope as “the feeling that what is wanted can be had.”

It means you believe good things are going to unfold in the future. If you apply that to how you love someone like that little brother of yours, it means you look to the future with positivity.

Dannah: Now, when it comes to that word in the Bible, we have a whole new meaning. Because “hope” is not a wishful thought.

Remember, all of 1 Corinthians 13 is describing the love of Christ. So, when you put Jesus into your hope, it’s a whole new level of forward thinking. It’s faith in God’s plan for someone to be good and useful. Because God has a good plan for your life . . . and for your sibling’s life!

So, let’s apply the hope of Jesus to your sister who invades your personal space. 

Staci: Or the brother who does not know what the word “stop” means when he’s teasing!

Dannah: Yeah. We know you think you love your brother and sister, but did you know that includes hoping for good things to happen for and to and through them?

When you love a person, you hope for great things for their future! 

Staci: Kind of reminds me of two very special brothers, John and David Livingston. Maybe you have heard of them?

David Livingston was born in England. He was a young couple's second baby boy. He had four brothers and two little sisters. Now, that's a lot of brothers and sisters. 

The family was poor and lived in a single tiny room in a place known as Shuttle Row. They were so poor that at the age of ten, David was sent off to work at the cotton factory with his older brother, John.

It seemed that both of these boys were going to be forced to follow the same path of poverty that their parents had known. 

But each of these boys had a hope, not just the hope to get out of poverty, but they had very specific hopes and dreams for their lives. So, on the weekends, they didn't play ball like the other boys they worked with. Nope. John and David hit the books. 

They made up for missing school by studying over the weekend. They had hopes for something better, and they knew that to achieve their dreams they had to get an education. This enabled them to eventually go to college. 

John quickly realized his dream of becoming a lawyer. He went on to become both wealthy and comfortable. 

David's dream took a little longer to achieve. He wanted to be a missionary and to do so, in that day and age, he had to study medicine. He needed to be a doctor, and that was going to cost an awful lot for a boy coming out of poverty. 

It was a very high hope. He had to work, then go to school, then work, then go to school, then work. Then . . . well, you get the picture.

In the second year of school, money got a little tight. That's when big brother John stepped in to save the day. He paid for David's second year of school. 

Eventually, David did realize his dream of being a missionary. In fact, he went on to be one of the greatest missionaries ever, and the first modern missionary to a little continent called Africa.

This man of God accomplished great things. Once he fought off a lion with his bare hands, of course, he didn't have much of a choice since the lion pounced on him. 

But how many people do you know who survived wrestling with a lion? He was the first explorer to ever cross the entire continent of Africa. He brought people who had never heard about Jesus into the family of God for the first time. 

David Livingston even has a city named after him in Zambia. 

While David was becoming this famous explorer, medical pioneer, and missionary, he stayed in contact with his dear brother, John. They never stopped reminiscing about the long days of working in that cotton factory and hoping that they might have a better future. 

You know what? I think it's just amazing that John never got jealous of his little brother's fame. He always hoped for the best for him. In fact, when John Livingston died, he had his tombstone engraved to say, “Here lies the brother of David Livingston.”

Dannah: Wow! Now, that's having hope for your brother to the very end. Do you have hope for your brothers and sisters? Do you dream with them? Plan with them? Help them to be what God wants them to be? That’s what God wants you to do.

Staci: A true girl knows that true love hopes. Are you ready for a crazy challenge? You’ll need your brothers or sisters to help with this one. 

Dannah: We want you to ding dong ditch someone. 

Staci: Do you know what that means? To ding dong ditch someone? It’s when you leave something at their front door, ring the door bell . . . and run!

Dannah: Yeah. Staci, have you ever ding dong ditched someone?

Staci: Yeah, it was in a hotel, so I don’t know if that counts. It wasn’t really a doorbell. But we knocked and we ran.

Dannah: You knocked and you ran. Well, I was the supervising mom when my kids baked a batch of the world’s biggest cookies—known as Monster Cookies. Then, my kids named themselves “The Backdoor Bandits” and ding dong ditched their grandparents!

Well, ding dong ditching true girl style always includes leaving something nice. 

So, step one, make the world's most delicious cookies. Make them so big you'll have to call them Monster Cookies. Place these ginormous cookies on a never to be returned plate. 

Step two, name your posse. Maybe you'll be The Backyard Bandits.

Staci: Or The Cookie Carousers. 

Dannah: Step three, sneak up to someone's house in the dark. Place your cookies on the doorstep. 

Step four, ring that doorbell. 

Step five, RUN!! 

Staci: Got that, true girl? 

Dannah: Now, while you’re baking those cookies, I want you to have a conversation with your brothers or sisters. What do they dream of becoming for God one day? How can you help them serve Him? How can you pray for them? Take that time to really tell them that you know love hopes, and you love them. So, you’re hoping for the best for their future as they seek to serve God!

Staci: Okay, my true girl, commence ding dong ditching!

Claire: Looks like you’re gonna need a recipe for Monster Cookies! They’re as big as they sound. I mean, the recipe has six eggs! 1 lb of brown sugar! 1 ½ pounds of crunchy peanut butter! 9 cups of rolled oats! And my favorite, ½ lb of chocolate chips and ½ pound of m&ms! Believe me, you’ll need an ice cream scoop to plop the dough on the baking pan.

You can get a copy and explore all of our other great mom/daughter discipleship tools at MyTrueGirl.com.

Join us next time when Dannah and Staci will tell you how to experience a friendship that never fails.

The True Girl podcast is produced by Revive Our Hearts, calling women of all ages to the true source of beauty: God’s Word!

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