The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 34 – Anne Graham Lotz & Rachel-Ruth Lotz Wright

Episode 34: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

This interview with Anne Graham Lotz and her daughter, Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright, focuses on their book Jesus Followers and the theme of passing the baton of faith to the next generation. They use the metaphor of a 4 x 100 meter relay race to structure their advice, emphasizing the importance of a smooth and intentional transfer of faith.

The conversation explores their personal experiences growing up as the daughter and granddaughter of Billy and Ruth Graham, highlighting how an authentic faith lived out in the home was crucial to their own spiritual development. They also address the unique and intensified challenges modern youth face, the vital role of prayer in parenting, and how to navigate painful trials and suffering while holding onto faith, reframing hardship as an opportunity to witness God’s glory.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:02):
Hey gang, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show. This is where we interview major thought leaders who demonstrate that worldview changes everything. I’m out of the studio this week traveling and I’m really looking forward to the interview that we have today with Anne Graham Lotz and Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright. Now, you may be familiar with them as Bible teachers. Their Bible studies are huge. They teach all over the country. They write books, but they’re also the daughter and granddaughter of Billy Graham and Ruth Graham.

And we’re going to talk about passing the baton of faith from one generation to the next, complete with lots of very vulnerable stories and some key ideas on how you and I can help our children and grandchildren stay faithful in faithless times. You can find this podcast everywhere that you get podcasts. Our partners, Edifi, Liftable, Spotify, Audible, Apple. Any other place that you get podcasts, you can find this.

(01:05):
Please share the Dr. Jeff Show with other people so that more people find out, hear the good news and get the kind of encouragement that you’re receiving week to week. Anne Graham Lotz and Rachel Ruth Wright, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show today.

Anne Graham Lotz (01:22):
Thank you so much. We’re delighted to join you.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:25):
I have been looking forward to this conversation for some time. I loved reading your new book, Jesus Followers. Rachel Ruth, congratulations, your first book. It was just delightful reading the book. And we’ll get into the themes of the book and some of the advice that you are sharing with people who are trying to raise faithful kids in an unfaithful world.

But I just love the way the book was formatted. And as a Bible teacher, you would give a Bible lesson about passing the baton of faith. And then Rachel Ruth, you would just give examples, family stories, things that made me feel like I really know the two of you and even know your parents, Anne, Billy and Ruth Graham and your grandparents, Rachel Ruth. So congratulations.

Rachel-Ruth Lotz Wright (02:20):
Thank you. Thank you. That means a lot.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:25):
As you wrote this book, you began with and developed this metaphor of passing the baton of truth. And I love that metaphor. That’s been a metaphor that’s been very meaningful to me. But I’d like for you to just describe why you chose that metaphor for this book at this time in our history.

Anne Graham Lotz (02:49):
My children grew up with a father who was an athlete and went to the University of North Carolina. He was on the UNC basketball team. They were undefeated. He won the national championship. And so anyway, when the children were little, he would take them over to watch sporting events at the university. And one of our favorite ones was the four by 100 meter relay, the race. And still, when the Olympics come on, that’s one of our favorite races to watch.

And it begins, each team has four members. And the first member is on the starting blocks. When the gun goes off, he’s gripping a baton. He runs as fast as he can through his lap. He comes to the second runner. The second runner’s already running as fast as he can. And the first runner passes the baton forward to that runner. Then he runs his lap and they pass the baton like that until the fourth runner receives it and finishes the race.

(03:43):
And the race is won, not just by those who run the fastest, but those who pass that baton the smoothest. And so I think of passing the truth to the next generation as like a relay race. And I based the scripture framework for this book on Genesis chapter five. And it’s funny, Dr. Jeff, you know how people skip over genealogies because they think there’s all the begats and he died and he begats and he died. But they can have some rich teaching in them.

And so Genesis five is that first list of begats. And so I pulled out four characters from that list who passed the truth to the next generation. And while they were living in cane civilization and cane civilization was so wicked that it actually provoked God’s judgment in the flood. So the last person on the list was Noah. And so I pulled up these four characters and what I felt were perhaps the predominant characteristics in their lives that helped us focus on some of the keys to passing the truth to the next generation effectively.

(04:51):
And then we formatted the book so that it’s a relay race, so there are four elements. And then each one of those elements is the part. The book is divided into four parts. And then Rachel Ruth wrote stories that sort of illustrate each one of those parts. So it seemed to work together well.

Dr. Jeff Myers (05:10):
Rachel Ruth, you grew up in a family where athletics was really important. And I’m curious how you see that metaphor as you’re raising three children of your own.

Rachel-Ruth Lotz Wright (05:23):
Yeah. Well, yeah, athletics was a huge part. I think I was carrying a basketball at the same time I could walk. And so we do love sports, and I think it helps me. I’m very visualized. I learn from stories and everything. So to picture the relay where you’re passing it off, it just makes sense. And when I’ve got three girls, I’m trying to raise to love the Lord and pass on that baton. It’s so important to me. And it’s so, to pass it on so that they get it, they grasp it and they hopefully pass it on to their kids. And so I think that picture in athletics is a wonderful one and it takes discipline.

Anne Graham Lotz (06:06):
And I think it’s but I think it’s scary to think that if you don’t pass the baton to the next generation, who will? And so the race is lost. If the baton is dropped or even if it’s bobbled. In fact, I even learned something from the last Olympics, but there’s a passing zone. You have to pass it within a certain portion of the track in order to qualify.

And I guess it was the last Olympics and our team came in third in the men’s four by 100 relay race and they were so excited. They wrapped themselves in an American flag. They’re doing a victory lap. And then they looked up at the scoreboard. They were disqualified because one of them hadn’t passed that baton within the passing zone.

So to me, the passing zone probably is in your home when your children are small and you can teach them and have a little bit more control over what they see, what they do, where they go, who their friends are.

(07:07):
But at the same time, it’s easier to pass it in the passing zone. At the same time, I want to encourage parents and grandparents, if your children are out of that passing zone, you can still pray and ask the Lord to give you opportunities to pass that baton to the next generation. And if it’s not within your own family, somebody else’s children in the neighborhood or at church or in Sunday school, that it’s important to pass the baton of truth to others, or will it die out in the next generation?

Dr. Jeff Myers (07:39):
Yeah. We talk a lot about mentoring and coaching, and I was remembering a study that George Barna did, the Barna Research Group, that showed that young adults who have adult friends in the church are two and a half times as likely to stay involved in church, as those who do not. And those who have a mentor in the church are almost three times as likely to stay involved. So it literally is true inside of the family, but also just in the context of the church. That’s right.

I’d love to, and I know that you get these kinds of questions all of the time, but Anne, you grew up with a famous father, famous mother, and I’m curious what your faith experience was like because you were in the spotlight. There must have been a lot of pressure and I’m curious about some of the things that your parents did for you that you wanted to be sure you passed on to your children and your grandchildren.

Anne Graham Lotz (08:41):
Actually, Dr. Jeff, I was not in the spotlight. My mother made sure that none of us were. So we didn’t give interviews. She wouldn’t allow our pictures taken. I mean, there are a few maybe for archives, but she was very protective, very wisely, so I think. So we grew up in a small community.

There’s a lot of retired missionaries, and my grandparents actually were retired missionaries. They had been in China for 25 years. And so it was a very normal, protected, wonderful childhood. But the thing that I am most grateful for, I guess, is that within the home, Jesus was loved, he was served, he was obeyed, he was talked about. And so I was a young girl, I can’t remember the exact year, I was eight or nine years of age.

(09:39):
It was Good Friday. I remember that. And I was watching a picture on television about the life of Jesus, came to the scene of the cross, and I knew that he had died for me. And I can remember getting on my knees beside my bed in my room at my mother and daddy’s house and just telling God, I knew Jesus had died for me and I was sorry for my sin and I asked him to forgive me and to come into my heart.

And I didn’t understand all the details, but I believe at that moment I was born again into God’s family and God doesn’t have grandchildren. So just because I’m Billy Graham’s daughter doesn’t mean that I’m a child of God. I had to make that decision for myself. But my home environment created an atmosphere where that was likely to happen when I was young.

(10:27):
It was just because, and this is something I’d like to tell parents that your faith is contagious. So just like if you love chocolate cake, your kids are probably going to love chocolate cake. If you love seafood, your kids probably, they imitate us to a certain degree. And the same thing is true with our faith, that our children can imitate us.

The important thing is that they don’t imitate us all their lives. They need to embrace Jesus for themselves at some point, but being raised in an atmosphere where there’s authentic faith that’s lived out privately and publicly made a huge impact on me. And at the time I might not have realized it, but I never went through a time of rebellion, never went through a time of, I went through a time when I was sort of looking for my own identity, but never was I in rebellion against God.

(11:25):
Never have I doubted his existence. Never have I doubted his love for me because from an early age, I knew him. I wouldn’t anymore doubt him than I would doubt the reality of my parents. So that’s a huge blessing. And if I can just tuck this into, and I want Rahcel Ruth to speak, but I was pretty much raised by a single parent and my father was gone, they estimate 60% of my growing up years.

And so I was raised by my mother and then her parents when I was little, they lived right across the street from us and then later, just a mile away, but they had to raise me. And just for those single parents out there, just to tell them that with God’s help, you can raise godly children. And it’s difficult and I don’t think it’s God’s ideal. God, for his own reasons, gave us a mother and a father and his best plan for the family, I believe, is a mother and a father and the children.

(12:27):
So many times we just mess up or something happens, somebody else messes up and we don’t have what would seem to be ideal, but God is our father. And he gave me a verse in Psalm 27:10. It says, “When your mother and father forsake you, then the Lord will take you up.” And my daddy didn’t forsake me, but he was gone so much. And I believe as a result, God took me up and I have a relationship with God that I wouldn’t have had had my father been there every night, had breakfast with me, and all that kind of stuff. He was gone, but God was there and he will be there for those who are trying to raise their children without the help of a spouse.

Dr. Jeff Myers (13:13):
Such great news for single parents, for all parents, but for parents whose schedules are busy, maybe military members whose spouse is deployed, all of those kinds of things, that’s such great news. And I wonder if, Rachel Ruth, if you could comment a little bit about grandparents, because I think a lot of grandparents are watching the show or listening to it right now, and they’re wondering, how do I help my grandchildren grow spiritually?

And I’d be curious if you would comment on some of the ways that your grandparents, Billy and Ruth, who you called Daddy Bill and Ty Ty, and also your dad’s parents who had such strong faith convictions as well, what are some of the ways that they passed the baton of truth to you?

Rachel-Ruth Lotz Wright (14:05):
I mean, there are so many ways, but so my dad’s parents were in New York City. My grandpa was a pastor in the Bronx and he was a big guy. I mean, just tough and rough, but he loved the Lord. I mean, just loved the Lord, loved preaching. He was a street quarter preacher too. He was one of those guys that would stand on the street corner and preach to whoever would listen to him. And he always carried tracks in his jacket that had some kind of something about the Lord or the gospel, but he put a little, what do you call them, safety pin thing.

(14:50):
With a dollar bill on it because he knew they wouldn’t just take a paper clip. They wouldn’t just take it, but if it had a dollar on it, they would take it. And so grandpa was always thinking of how to be a witness. And I remember him coming down to Raleigh after he’d taken some hitchhiker to the beach to tell him about Jesus. He was so great. He’d pick up people and tell them about you. But then when he’d show up at our house, he was always in his Bible.

And I remember him looking at his Bible because he died when I was 12. So he had an impact on my life all the way up just until age 12, but I still remember it. And I remember him with his magnifying glass over his Bible, reading it and loving it and studying it. And the same thing with Teta and Daddy Bill, when I would go up to their house or they were visiting, we always talked about God’s word.

(15:41):
Every single dinner was focused on something that was happening in school and how the Lord was carrying us through or where Daddy Bill had just been. He would tell us about his trips and what the Lord had done. And then he would always end it in devotions, all of our dinners. And even before he’d go to bed, we’d have devotions when we wake up in the morning, we would have devotions.

And so everything was centered around the Lord. It was very natural. It wasn’t like, no, it’s time to read God’s word. And everybody’s like, “Ah.” It was interesting. It was exciting. It was relevant and they were doing the work and then we got to hear all the missionary stories of what it was they were actually doing. And so it was always on in their mouth. It was always coming out of what they were saying and what they were doing.

(16:32):
And so I think the best thing we can do when we pass it down to our kids or our grandkids is to live it authentically and it has to be in your heart. You just have to love Jesus and love his word and then it just naturally flows out. You just talk about it when you pick your kids up from school, when you’re yourself walking to class and you meet this person in your class and you’re, “Oh, I just read this in my devotions this morning.” It’s natural. It’s not rehearsed or anything like that. It just comes out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so I think that’s what I saw on my grandparents.

Anne Graham Lotz (17:10):
And I think, if I can add to that, because what I saw in her grandparents, which would be my parents, but I would catch my mother on her knees in prayer. You would catch her at her desk studying the Bible. So it wasn’t something she did to show.

(17:26):
It wasn’t put on, it was who she was. And it was very precious. And I saw it lived out in her life. She raised five of us pretty much by herself with my grandparents’ help and I never saw her lose her temper. She had a wonderful sense of humor. She was crazy fun. There was nothing pious and self-righteous or sort of stuffy religious about her, just lots of fun.

But she was in love with Jesus and she loved his word. In fact, one of the treasures of my life is that she willed me her Bible so that I have her Bible and my brother tried to get it from me because one verse has a note. Every verse, every page has her little tiny handwriting. I wish I had big handwriting. She used a little tiny rapidograph pen in the margins and she just loved the word.

(18:23):
And you could tell, I remember one time, I think it was Julie Nixon Icenow wrote a book about some people that impacted her and she talked about the way my mother handled her Bible, that the way she stroked the pages and the way she held it, you could just see how she loved her Bible primarily. Yeah, she cherished it, but primarily because she loved Jesus. And Jesus is revealed to us through the word and Jesus reveals God to us. So you really can’t know Jesus and you can’t know God if you’re not in your Bible and reading it, studying and applying it, living it out. And I saw that in Rachel’s grandparents.

Dr. Jeff Myers (18:59):
Well, I love the way you formatted the book where you focus on witness, worship, walk and work, right? The four themes that structure the book and sort of the four legs of the relay is how I was thinking of it. And I’m curious if you, Rachel Ruth, if you think the challenges that young parents face today are different than the ones that you faced growing up, because you’re raising children, I’m raising children and their experiences, it’s wild. It’s not like what I remember growing up and I didn’t know if that’s just because of where I grew up or if that’s your experience as well.

Rachel-Ruth Lotz Wright (19:47):
Yeah. I mean, and I thought it was hard when I was growing up. I mean, I just thought it was a disaster going to high school with all these mean kids and all the things they’re doing, it doesn’t even compare to what they’re facing now because not only do they still have these mean kids, but the temptations and what’s offered to them is so much greater and so much worse because they’ve got it on their phones, they’ve got this social media that causes this insecurity and then they’ve got pressure and all kinds of anxiety because of really the spirit of fear that’s over the whole world.

But just coming from all these different arenas and all these things and it’s an overload. It’s really an overload in their heads and trying to navigate that on your own. In fact, my youngest daughter who’s 15, she’s a freshman in high school and one of her friends that she’s met since she’s gone into this new high school said that his parents, he only says hi to them.

(20:49):
They don’t interact with them. They just say hi to them, that’s it. And so that’s what a lot of these kids are facing out there. Just uninvolved parents, they look at their kids, figure it out, you just figure it out and they put no effort into it. They just want to put effort into money or having time to themselves and these kids are left to fend for themselves and try and figure it out in a world that is trying to eat them alive.

And so if there ever was a time to get into God’s word, to have Christian fellowship, to invest in your kids or your friends or have that solid group of godly friends, it’s now because the enemy has always been out there to kill, steal and destroy, but he knows his time is super short. And so he is just at least like the worst of the worst demons, I think.

(21:42):
And so we just have to be so vigilant to kind of keep everything close, like God’s word close to our hearts and prayer and godly influences and be very careful of what you let in, whether it’s … And people hear this all the time. “Oh yeah, they’re always saying watch what you, careful what you watch, be careful what you listen to.” There is something to that.

We have to be so careful of what we allow when it’s all offered to us and we have to be very careful to not watch those things, not listen to those things. You can be a witness to people, but don’t let them in your close circles. And so I think there’s a lot of things kids nowadays have to be even more careful than we did. And so we as parents and grandparents, we just have to love on them, love, love, love our kids and encourage them and send them scripture, do everything we can to help them because it is so hard.

Anne Graham Lotz (22:43):
And I want to underscore one thing that she touched on, and that is I believe this generation in a unique way, the enemy is after, and I’m speaking of the devil, the enemy of our souls is after our children, and especially the children in Christian homes, and especially the children of Christian leaders. And so it’s like a total frontal assault.

So we know that greater is he that’s in us than he that’s in the world. So we know that we have the victory and that we can, but I think it takes an enormous amount of commitment and intentionality and maybe it’s good also because we have to be strong in our faith. We always should have been strong in our faith, but now it’s like it’s not an option. You’ve got to be really strong in your faith and living it out before your children within the home, not in a put on way, but in a genuine way in order to help undergird them for the facing of everything that’s being thrown at them.

Dr. Jeff Myers (23:49):
Yeah. First Peter 3:15 is one of the verses that we like a lot at Summit. Always be ready to give a reason for the hope that you have. And I can’t underscore this enough for people who are watching or listening who have children, that’s something we’ve got to do with our own kids. That’s not just for when an atheist says, “I don’t believe there is a God,” or, “I don’t believe in creation.” That’s something where we explain our convictions to our children and share that, “No, this is why we do things the way we do. This is how we do this in our family.” And then just praying and hoping that they will pick up that baton and carry it on.

Anne Graham Lotz (24:33):
And Dr. Jeff, you just mentioned prayer and I think that’s something that we want to underscore also, the absolute necessity of bathing our children in prayer. And Rachel Ruth, she’s gifted in prayer. She’s gifted in speaking. She’s teaching an online Bible study that people are welcome to join. You come to my website and grandlocks.org and sign up for Rachel Ruth’s online Bible study. She’s got about 6,000 people from around the world who are in that Bible study.

(25:03):
She’s going through the book of Genesis, but she also is, I think, a gifted writer, which I didn’t know until we’re working on this book, but she’s a gifted prayer. And that’s sort of a funny thing to say, I guess, because we’re all commanded to pray, but God gives her insight and gives her visuals and gives her, in the middle of the night, wake her up and bring somebody’s name to her mind and she prays for me. She prays for her children and of course her friends and such and people around the world that she’s never even met. It’s amazing the people that have been covered by her prayers.

So it’s a work of the Spirit. Parenting is a difficult, challenging, fulfilling job, but we can’t do it on our own. We’ve got to have the help of God’s Spirit, and I believe we activate all that through prayer, and we need to lean on the Lord, and he loves our children more than we do, but we need to pray for them as specifically as we can, cover them in prayer during the day, as well as sharing scripture with them to encourage them and build up their faith.

Dr. Jeff Myers (26:22):
I love that. One of the things I did with my kids growing up is if the Lord gave me a prayer for them, I would write it out on a little index card and just give it to them and say the simple prayer or a verse. As I was praying for you, God put this verse on my heart and I just wanted to write it down and give it to you. And it’s funny, I was recently going through a lot of the tubs of all of their stuff from growing up. They kept all of those cards.

Anne Graham Lotz (26:51):
That’s the one difficult thing about text, because you text those things, but you don’t save them. So to write them down on an index card, I think that’s a wonderful thing to do.

Dr. Jeff Myers (27:03):
Yeah. And it’s so simple. It takes just a few seconds, but it really impresses on the heart of the child that the Lord is speaking to you on their behalf.

Anne Graham Lotz (27:15):
And then they have something to go back to and look at years later. It’s funny, my son was going through a lot of things from his childhood and he looked for months and months. It was one letter he wanted to find and he finally found it. It was a letter I had written him when he was in high school and he remembered it. He remembered the contents and he just wanted that to hang on to. Really sweet.

Dr. Jeff Myers (27:36):
Yeah. Wow. Those little things may not seem like they mean a lot at the moment, but are so, so important. Yeah. There’s something I wanted to ask you about the book that as I read through it, it was impressed on me that a lot of the life lessons that the two of you have learned, you learned through painful trials. And thank you first for sharing that because I know when you have a highly visible ministry, it’s very, very difficult to be vulnerable about those struggles. So thank you.

But you have been through the death of your husband, Anne, and your dad, Rachel Ruth, cancer, all health issues, all different kinds of things. And I’m curious what you would say to a young adult who might be watching or listening who says, “Pain really has shaken my faith.” Because I hear this all of the time, I didn’t think it was going to be this hard.

(28:45):
I thought I had a good deal that I made with God, that if I was just a good person, that he would reward me with an easy life. And thank you for talking about those issues, but also framing them. And I’m curious, if you were to be involved in that conversation, how would you approach it? How would you give encouragement and instruction to that young person?

Anne Graham Lotz (29:14):
Well, life is hard. I’ve lived long enough to know that life is hard, but I’ll tell you this, it would be a lot harder without Jesus. So some things just happen. I mean, cancer doesn’t choose whether it’s going to go to a believer or non-believer. And my spouse went to heaven. And let me give you this illustration if I could, because in Exodus 34, Moses asked to see God’s glory. So God put him in the cleft of a rock and he said, “I’m going to pass by. You can’t see my face, but you can see my backside.”

So God put Moses in a cleft of Iraq. He put him in a hard place, a place where there was really And no way out. And then God put his hand over him. So Moses would have felt God’s presence. And then God removed his hand. So Moses would then feel abandoned and then God passed by and Moses didn’t see his face. So he didn’t see him at the moment that he was passing by.

(30:15):
He had to look back and he saw God in retrospect. And for myself, my aim is not to be healthy, wealthy, happy, prosperous, problem free. My aim is to know God and to sense if I could put it this way, see his glory. His glory is his character. And so when he passed by Moses, it said he passed by his goodness, his faithfulness, his mercy, his kindness.

And so when I look back on the hard place, when I found my husband unresponsive in our pool, and at the moment, at that time, I didn’t see God’s face. I didn’t sense his presence, just horrific what you’re going through. But I look back and then I can see, oh my goodness, there was a chaplain with the EMS team. My son-in-law came to put his arm around me when my husband was taken out of the yard for the last time.

(31:06):
My children gathered around me at the hospital when we put my husband on life support. And then you look back and you see God was right there. He was faithful every moment during that dreadful time. And I think if we’re focused on ourselves, then we’re going to miss a lot. And I wrote this in my book, Jesus in Me, experiencing the divine companionship of the Holy Spirit.

And I wrote that and I wrote a lot of these hard experiences because it’s interesting, isn’t it Dr. Jeff? It’s in the hard places that we tend to give God our full attention. And that’s when we draw, if you don’t let that bitterness or that resentment or whatever creep in, that’s when we’re pressed closest to him. That’s when we get to see his glory. We know his character. We discover his faithfulness and then it just becomes a very rich faith building experience.

(32:08):
So for those of you who thought when you came to Christ that things would be easy, then you’re not reading your Bible carefully because no one was more blessed, more beloved by God than his son, Jesus. And Jesus was taunted. He was betrayed. He was accused. He was persecuted. He was flogged. He was crucified. And God, the Father allowed all that, but to bring the glory out.

And Jesus, Hebrews 12 says that he despised the shame and for the joy that was set before him. And you and I are the joy. The redeemed humanity is his joy. So if you turn your back on God, because he’s allowed hard things to come into your life, then I’m just going to give you a heads up. You’re going to miss the glory. You’re going to miss the blessing he would have given you as a result of going through it and discovering who he can be to you in those hard places.

(33:11):
Psalm 23 says, God said, when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, that’s about as bad as it gets, I’ll be with you. So he gives testimony. Many, many things have happened in my life that have been very difficult and God has been with me and every single one. He has never forsaken. There have been times when I felt abandoned when his hand was removed, but I know from Hebrews, it says that I will never leave you. I’ll never forsake you.

And so I don’t live my life by my feelings. I live my life by faith which I’ve planted in the word of God. God keeps his word. So I’m sorry for those who thought life would be easy, but God didn’t, who is it that said that? God didn’t call us to an easy life, but didn’t come to make men easier, but to make us great.

Dr. Jeff Myers (34:07):
So powerful to hear that because it’s true. You could embrace a different worldview, but the pain will still be there. You just won’t have any answer for it. That’s right. I recently went through a cancer battle and one of the verses that really stuck with me, in fact, I just meditated on it during those nights, long nights of sleeplessness, Lamitations 3:22 and 23, “Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed. For his mercies are new every morning and his faithfulness is great.”

And sometimes it’s day by day. You don’t, Lord, can we do this morning because I don’t know about a year from now or five years from now, I can’t even imagine, but let’s do today. Show me your mercies anew today.

Anne Graham Lotz (34:57):
And you know Dr. Jeff, that was Jeremiah. And the verse before that said, “I’ll well remember my afflictions, the bitterness and the gall.” And so it was contrasted. He had horrific things happen to him. So what you just described, what he was testifying that God’s mercies are new every morning, great is your faithfulness, that was contrasted to those hard places. I don’t know that he would have been able to testify to God’s mercy and faithfulness had he not had those hard places.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:28):
Well, that’s right. Yeah. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation as we get ready to close and we’re going to put information in the show notes about the book, about your website, about the Bible study, which sounds tremendous. Rachel Ruth, congratulations on that. So exciting too, in COVID, everything went virtual and all of a sudden it exploded all over the world, didn’t it?

Rachel-Ruth Lotz Wright (35:53):
God is so good. Yeah. I’m very thankful.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:56):
Yeah. Well, I’d be curious if you have a story that you might each like to share in closing just about your childhood experience of faith or just any encouragement that you have about passing the baton that we’ve talked a lot about a lot of things, but I know stories are so central to this book. I wonder if there’s some favorites that you’d like to share with our audience.

Rachel-Ruth Lotz Wright (36:21):
There’s one that always seems to stick in my head, but when I was little, I mean, I’m the ADHD kid, lots of energy and my sister and I were different and so we didn’t get along really well growing up, but we shared a room and I did something to upset her. I still cannot remember what it was, but she was so mad she was chasing me through the house and I was running as fast as I could.

And there out the back door, it was a glass and screen. And anyhow, I slammed it on her and it shattered. And so I was like, but I just kept running because I knew I was going to get it. I mean, and so I hid in my mom’s station wagon and was just like, and then I heard her yell at my name and I got out of the car and she sent me to my room, which is good.

(37:15):
I mean, she was just like, “Go to your room,” because she didn’t lose it with me right there. And so I went upstairs and was just thinking about it, just knowing my mom. And my parents used to spank me, so I knew I was going to get it. And so I kind of joked in the book that I remember, I mean, I literally, so many times with stuffed animals on my pants because I thought, well, that’ll just happen if they’ll never know.

Dr. Jeff Myers (37:40):
You’ll never notice.

Rachel-Ruth Lotz Wright (37:44):
And so I heard my dad coming up the stairs and I was just like, “Oh boy.” And my parents were very loving and taught us through discipline and everything, but I heard him come up the stairs and he walked in and he sat down next to me and he was like, “Rach?” And I was just like, “What?” And he said, “I want to teach you about grace today.” And I was just like, “What?” And he said, “You deserve to be in trouble for what you did. You slammed that door, you shattered it, and we got to get it fixed now.”

And he said, “But I want to teach you about grace and how Jesus, even though we deserve death because of our sins, he extends us grace on the cross by forgiving our sins and taking them away when we don’t deserve it. We deserve to die because of our sins, but Jesus paid it all on the cross and then he just offers it to us.” And so he taught me about grace that day and he said, “I’m going to take you to go get ice cream.” And I still can’t remember if we actually went to get ice cream, but he said that we were going to go.

(38:49):
And so I never forgot it. It just taught me so much, just a simple way. And I remember doing the same thing with my girls one day, all three of them had gotten in trouble when they were younger and I was so upset and I was driving the car and I was just like, “Okay, I’m going to teach them about grace.”

I told the girls, I was like, “I’m going to teach you about grace. Y’all deserve to be in trouble, but we’re going to go to Blockbuster.” This is when we used to have Blockbuster video when they were little. And so they were so excited, but then they haven’t ever forgotten it. And so just simple things like that as a parent or even as an adult, whatever, those moments, those teachable moments where we can take a situation like that and teach them about Jesus.

(39:39):
And so in his grace or his mercy or his love, and that was just one that always stuck with me. And I could give you 50 more examples, but that’s someone that stuck out right now. That’s a great one.

Dr. Jeff Myers (39:51):
Those are such great stories. And they’re in the book, in the book. I’ve got the pre-publication version here called Jesus Followers, and the subtitle is Real Life Lessons for Igniting Faith in the Next Generation. Anne and Rachel Ruth, thank you so much for being on the Dr. Jeff Show today.

Anne Graham Lotz (40:09):
It’s been our privilege. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you.

Dr. Jeff Myers (40:13):
I’m so grateful to our guests today, Anne Graham Lotz and Rachel Ruth Lotz Wright. What an amazing conversation talking about passing the baton of truths to the next generation. If you want more information on their ministry, go to annegrahamlotz.org. You can also check out the show notes because we have a lot of information there, including how to find them on Twitter and Instagram. And Jesus Followers is the name of the book. Look for that anywhere books are sold. Thank you so much for joining this week for the Dr. Jeff Show.

Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show. It’s a podcast from Summit Ministries, summit.org. Summit is a nonprofit ministry that exists to equip and support the rising generation to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview.

For nearly 60 years, Summit Ministries has been training students and those who work with students to develop, deepen and defend a biblical worldview through life-changing conferences, thoughtful church, homeschool and Christian school, curriculum books, free online resources and more. If you want to live out a biblical worldview in today’s world and you desire to instill a lifelong faith in the rising generation, visit summit.org/thedrjeffshow for more information.

(41:36):
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