Home Is a Place to Work

Welcome back to my series on homemaking. (Catch up by reading part 1 and part 2.) Each Wednesday I’ll be exploring what God’s Word has to say to me on the topic of managing my time as a wife and mother.

Revile is a strong word. It can mean “to spread negative information” or “to attack someone with abusive language.” The Bible shows me several ways that I as a young homemaker am especially prone to revile the word of God. When I neglect His commands in this areas, it’s as if I’m spreading negative information about the Lord and His gospel… or worse, I’m attacking His word with my life.

“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” (Titus 2:3-5)

How can I revile His word? By being unloving. With a lack of self-control. By thinking impure thoughts and engaging in impure behavior. By being unkind. By defying and disrespecting my husband. And by not being a faithful worker at home.

So the way I keep my home is absolutely foundational to my life as a Christian woman. Being a hardworking homemaker is ranked right along with the character traits of love, purity, self-control, kindness, and submission.

Much of my life at home is hidden, but it’s the place where some of my greatest spiritual battles are fought. It’s the scene of my most important efforts for God’s kingdom. It’s the arena where God is sanctifying me. And I must not allow it to become a place of laziness and self-indulgence. It is a place for me to work.

Home is a place for every member of the family to work in some way – but not in the same way I do. Serving my husband, taking care of my children, and seeing to the cleaning and upkeep - those responsiblities are mine, 24/7. I don’t get to clock out at the end of every day – I am always on call.

For my husband, home should not be first about work. His vocational calling takes place outside the home. He still has husbandly and fatherly responsiblities at home, but for him it should be a haven, a place to rest. I should not constantly be calling on him to help me when he is at home (although he is very gracious to do so even without being asked).

This is challenging! I can’t compartmentalize my job as a homemaker, as a wife and mother. Faithfulness in these areas requires plain, old-fashioned, unromantic hard work – when I am tired, unmotivated, and stressed out, as much as when I’m happy and upbeat.

I am encouraged by the example of my mother when I was growing up. She was (and is) always a hard worker. She didn’t slack in serving her family or keeping her house. Like the Proverbs 31 woman, she looked well to the ways of her household and did not eat the bread of idleness. She showed me how to be a worker at home.