Part Three: My Job Description

It is wise to have a destination point before we map out our course or even get excited about the journey. In this post I am going to run through my experience and make some suggestions on having vision for that destination point. If time permits, I hope the reader can go back to The Car Keys Part One and Part Two and read all three articles as a whole. This article builds on the previous posts concerning the myth of the stay-at-home mom, the fact that we are given only 24 hours daily and must make biblical choices of how we will purposefully fill those hours, the great need for biblical contentment in the lives of contemporary women, and the basics of submission.

The conviction to stay home and build a strong family life that will affect the world for Christ matured through the lessons God sovereignly has placed in my life over the past 30 years. These lessons were external pressures placed upon me because my natural inclination is to undertake other pursuits and for the most part I was raised under a feministic agenda that did not uphold the Bible as truth. I will cite a few of the lessons I have learned in my journey.

For several years I did not have the ability to leave the home as we were a one car family and that one car could only transport one or the other as we seemed to go in opposite geographical directions. Those days were productive as they were filled with caring for my infant daughters. With the addition of a second car, I ventured back into a music career – teaching part time at a private school, teaching my piano studio of 35 students, and administrating and directing the choral and handbell program at church – all of this in addition to raising two toddler daughters.

It was during this time that I began listening to what Christian women were saying …. they were dissatisfied with their marriages, had shallow relationships with their children, were overwhelmed by their weekly schedules and living disconnected at best and frantic at worst, were discontent even as their financial resources swelled, and their homes were merely bedroom communities for sleep. Contemporary home living did not look attractive to me. I joined a group of twelve women, all who were a few years ahead of me in marriage and family . I listened to them converse month after month at our meetings. The conversations were disheartening to me and these women could not biblically defend their practices. It seemed that the woman who had it all had very little. At the same time, I desired to do more home things but responsibilities from outside the home took priority with the deadlines I had to meet.

Our decision to bring me home came with the decision to home educate. The first year of being home was tough. My social life diminished, my self-worth plummeted and my performance was no longer based upon pleasing the people around me. I had been addicted to competition in the workplace and had thrived on excelling.

I very much struggled with this. For one thing, going from musical performance to the daily tasks of caring for a home and educating two instead of two hundred was initially quite a lot to swallow. Because I did not have a vision for home life, tasks were weighted with boredom and drudgery or even ignored. I found that I did not really know how to love my children sacrificially or how to meet their needs. One of the downsides of metropolitan living was that during the first years at home, the car keys helped me to frequently escape in efforts to sooth my restless spirit. (Note: Half of the world’s population now lives in cities with all of the temptations and choices of secular man staring them in the face daily. Metropolitan living is a spiritual challenge.) I signed the children up for gym class, sewing class, art class, Bible memory verse programs, craft events and so forth. We shopped quite a bit. I talked on the phone a lot. We spent many days going to the local parks and libraries. I searched for answers to my restlessness in women’s seminars, bible studies and reading materials but they fell short.

Another external lesson came along that brought me home fully… five difficult pregnancies and in addition several miscarriages within a ten year period of time. I was too ill to drive, too exhausted to keep up with the world, and we spent day after day at home. It was from that sick bed that I caught a glimpse of home life and began to write out my job description and actually get excited about it.

God placed in my life several women who were pursuing scriptural living and had been doing this successfully for some time. I wished I had started earlier. The Bible became alive to me as I began to apply the women’s passages to my life. Right off the bat, my love for my husband deepened and quickened. My older daughters and I memorized Proverbs 31 and found a multitude of ways to apply it in our home. At every bend of the road came conviction to change and many times I struggled with the next step of obedience that God was bringing to light. Displeasure from others was high as hurtful comments were hurled our way that were based on secular feminism and not the scriptures. By this time I had found that I did not need to run away from home, or have lots of time off for myself. My joy and refreshment was in my marriage and in my children and within my own four walls. The funny thing is that through our home we were affecting more outsiders for Christ than in previous years. (My children, however, remain my primary evangelistic goal to this day.)

I had initially thought that I would cite examples of how staying home has created a fruitful life for our family and how it has reached our community for Christ. The rough draft list was so long that I gave up the attempt. Our lives are so full that I could not prioritize the list. An opposite approach would have been to detail out the areas where I have struggled that are being cured by living biblically… things like anger, irrational and rational fear, baggage from my childhood, and deep hurts. Instead, I am going to post “My Job Description” at the end of this article as a resource for those who are searching for vision in the area of biblical womanhood. I hesitate to do this as it is rather personal and I am far from achieving my goals. On the other hand, I wish I had read something like this years ago when I was searching for how to jumpstart my own life. It surely answers the feministic accusation that putting husbands first and raising children is dull, a poor usage of intelligence, a lower form of living, and oppressive. I find nothing of the sort in my life because God’s plan is always best and His promises are true for those who seek and obey Him. As we obey Him, we leave behind the shackles of sin and the chains of our flesh, and we come forth victors in a world that needs this kind of testimony for Christ.

What a reformation it would be for families to faithfully build strong Christian homes that would engage the world with the Gospel of Christ in modeling what real living is all about! The run-around-mom that lives a hybrid form of womanhood runs ragged and then returns home exhausted and her husband suffers, her family suffers, and her church suffers. Our nation suffers because run-down American families make up the very fabric of our nation.

One final item about The Car Keys. It’s not a set of rules. As soon as we publicized “Questions for Wives,” we received feedback that indicated that people expected a set of no-no’s, or they inferred that we were legalistically trying to rain on their parade. That is the wrong approach. It’s not that a woman is wrong to assist her husband in the marketplace. It’s not that taking advantage of a benefit in the community is wrong. It’s not that a certain number of days at home are the criteria. It’s not about skipping the library and the park. It’s not that a woman leaves her brain behind. It is, however, all about focus.

The vertical focus of the Christian woman is to love her Lord with all her heart, soul, mind and strength. She will do this through obedience to God’s Word and she knows up front that this obedience will be sacrificial. She will study and meditate on the scriptures in the context of the whole written Word.

The horizontal focus of a Christian woman’s life is good works achieved through her home.

The Proverbs 31 woman ministers to others through her home and “let her own works praise her in the gates.” Note, however, that it is her husband that does the actual sitting in the gates.

The I Timothy 5:10 woman is an elderly woman who has met the requirements to be cared for by the church. What are those requirements? She is “well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.”

The I Tim. 5:14 woman is the younger widow who has not earned the care of the church. Again, what are those requirements? … “that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.”

The Titus 2:4,5 woman is to be sober, love her husband, love her children, discreet, chaste, a keeper at home, good, obedient to her husband “that the word of God be not blasphemed.”

Car Key Question #3 is: Do we have a vision for beautiful womanhood in the home?

Car Key Resource #3 to help us gain vision is: “My Job Description” from my personal notebook. This is something that I have been writing over the past 15 years. A current copy is found here. Feel free to print it out and scribble all over it and make it yours. Or start one from scratch. I would encourage you, though, to love your husband with such depth that you are willing to give up the car keys and place your focus in your home. Put them in the ignition only when the purpose is to fulfill your job as a Titus 2 woman!

For further study read the article, “An Exegetical Defense of the Woman as Keeper at Home.”

Part Two: Thinking It Through

For several weeks I pondered why the Car Keys was under fire in Questions for Wives. Was staying at home the issue? Was the right of a husband to ask for the car keys being called into question? Or was it rooted in confusion over what to do with our time at home and how to bear fruit at home? As I thought through this, it became evident that all of the above were involved in the Car Key Question.

So it’s time to be thinking it through. And it’s not that these things have been easy for me to learn, nor do I have these things down pat. Questions for Wives was born out of my own struggles, biblical study, convictions, and failures over quite a few years.

I suggest that we look at two biblical concepts and apply them to the Car Keys.

Contentment

It is alarming to me how discontent Christian women are these days, including myself. We truly are a self-centered group, hardly rising up to the duty of true service and sacrifice to God, paling in comparison to women of past centuries. As I read women’s blogs and magazines, listen to conference tapes, and meet Christian women in my community, it is evident that the woman of today wants it ALL. She wants the perfect husband who sees life through her grid and fills her needs, a finely tuned balance of home and work, time to herself, and a satisfying supply of church generated resources to meet her and her family’s spiritual needs. She desires the latest fashions and trends in furniture, clothing, hairstyles and colors, the perfect smile, gourmet foods and restaurants, music, and cars. She definitely values time at the gym and spa. She always wants just a little more than she has, or she wants what she already has to appear bigger and better. She wants her children to excel academically and socially and she goes to great lengths to fulfill their social and sports calendar. She herself does not want to fall short of the contemporary image and she attempts to live in a younger season of life. Somewhere in all of this she seeks ministry opportunities to ensure that she is “serving the Lord.” She reads books to find out how to solve problems and at times she has an unquenchable social thirst. She tries to fill her love tank with just about everything. Her spirit wavers between an artificial peace and a circumstance based rest. Her discontentment actually hardens her heart. She is so caught up in the world’s system of living, trying to superimpose Christianity upon it, that she ends up restless and unsuccessful.

The home schooling mother is not immune to this frenzy. In fact, she adds the extra burden of producing high achievement children according to home schooling hype. Add to that a dose of baking her own bread, sewing historical costumes for the latest history event, serving in the local support group, and possibly aiding her husband in cottage industry and/or entrepreneurial pursuits.

If this seems too harsh an assessment, note the following book descriptions lifted right from the women’s section of a Christian bookseller’s catalog that recently came to my mailbox. These phrases indicate that the contemporary Christian woman is indeed disillusioned and discontent with her life. Please note that these are “Christian” books.

-How to juggle your career, your home, and your ministry.
-How to make love work in your life.
-Finding fulfillment in your life when you can’t seem to get enough
-Get answers about your money.
-Frazzled? Refresh your life.
-How to get what you want in this world.
-What to do with a desperate household.
-Surviving your child’s middle years.
-Finding yourself and meeting your needs in your marriage.
-Your need to find adventure.
-How to survive when you don’t get what is coming to you.
-How to be savvy.
-Making guilt free decisions.
-Are you drowning in email and the internet?
-Decorate your living spaces to appear more than they are.
-How to strategically organize your life before it eats away at you.
-Running nowhere in every direction.
-The frazzled factor – slipping sanity into your frenzied life.
-How to manage your family’s unmanageable demands.
-Running on empty.
-How to overcome overload.
-Helping the harried home schooler.
-Hanging in there for the home educator.
-How the ordinary parent can produce extraordinary children.
-How to educate on the go… make your children road scholars.
-Make your dreams come true!
-Unleash your heart and let it go free.
-You gotta sit down with a latte and gab with your girlfriends.
-Boundaries: how to take control of your life.
-Nine things you simply must do – why some people get what they want out of life

If we think that today’s Christian woman finds fulfillment in following the world’s design for her, then we are very disillusioned. Just reading through that list tells me that we have the world’s plan for women in place, not what God has for us.

Sometimes God’s Way as detailed in His Book is so overly simplistic that we totally miss His counsel on living our lives. Here are several scriptures that are particularly helpful and simple in ordering our thoughts in the area of contentment.

Phil. 4:11b – In whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

I Tim. 6:8 – And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

Heb. 13:5a – Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have.

II Corinthians 10:12 – For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

Jeremiah Burroughs in his The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment has this definition of contentment relating to all areas of life:

Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.

This gracious frame of spirit was lacking in the young widow in New Testament times as mentioned in I Timothy 5:13 and 14. These women were instructed to turn their focus toward their own homes. (An instruction also given to women in Titus 2:2-5)

And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.)

I have often wondered why the scriptures give us this detail concerning the harlot in Proverbs 7:11… her feet abide not in her house. She must not have been content to be at home either.

It is obvious that this article is only going to scratch the surface of what Christian contentment is. A first step is to study God’s Word concerning what He has designed for women and then ask ourselves if we are content to line up with Him on these things without stretching the scriptures to serve ourselves. I’ll be sharing some of these scriptures in a subsequent post to this article.

There have been several times in my life that I have also taken the study of God’s Word a step further and have taken The Contentment Test. I denied myself the privilege of going out of my home for a few days, or delayed purchasing things, or pursued the completion of loose ends that I’d rather not do but fall under Proverbs 31 projects …. instead of leaving my home. During these times of testing I have noted those things that have caused me to have a restless spirit or those things that I just had to have whether they were activities, material goods, or relationships. What my heart was seeking surprised me, especially when I realized that too often the source of my discontentment was that I longed for things that God has either not given to me or He has forbidden in His Word. These included gifts, talents, and accomplishments. And it included afflictions that I am discontent with bearing although my sovereign God has seen fit for these in my life. And to be honest, I ran this test two weeks ago and found more things in my heart that are sources of discontentment that I seek to gratify outside of my home. (Geographically or on the internet.)

This brought me to ask the question: What exactly does and does not keep me at peace? It has become apparent to me that we must repent of discontentment which is really…

-failing to trust God in His sovereignty or
-failing to delight in what He has prescribed for us in His Word or
-failing to accept all aspects of our pilgrimages or
-loving things in this world instead of those things that count for eternity.

The root of much discontentment is the word that is not popular to use: worldliness. We are so caught up in the world, that we view our life through that grid, rather than evaluating our lives according to obedience and sacrificial service to God. When we are walking in true, godly contentment, than we count it joy to sacrifice for the purpose of loving and serving the Lord.

We must walk in a spirit of gratitude for God’s instructions and His plan for us. And forego murmuring. “And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled.” Numbers 11:1. We should spend time everyday thanking God for His plan and His rules and His ways and for what He has given us today.

Submission

I speculate that the bottom line issue here is: what if my husband actually did ask for the car keys? Would that be a problem?

It should not be. Let’s check in with Paul and Peter here.

Ephesians 3: 22-24 – Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Colossians 3:18 – Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

I Pet. 3: 5,6 – For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.

I realize that many today have taken the feministic position that has rewritten what saints have known and believed for centuries … that God’s Word simply means what it says and it goes all the way back to the created order in Genesis 1. There is always an authority structure and God’s Word plainly teaches that husbands are to lead and wives are to follow, spare in issues of sin. We are still bucking this created order thousands of years later because we still are fighting the ancient question of who is in charge and who is not.

Beyond that, how many of us who do believe in the historical position of submission would say, “Oh yes, if my husband were called to missionary work, I would willingly go.” Or what if he desired to give a large sum of money to a Christian cause. We would willingly agree. Well, what if he asked for the car keys? Is this any different? Why are the keys exempt from submission?

My husband has talked to many men throughout the years and too many of them have privately expressed to him the desire for their wives to be at home and fulfill biblical womanhood. They long to take off in their vision for their family, but the wife’s lack of submission puts brakes on the wheels. They long to do great things for God but they are defeated by their wives’ worldly appetites. The sadness these men carry is that their wives are subtly bucking the system and maintaining an independent spirit and it works against the family being fruitful in many ways.

Women claim they want their husbands to lead, but in actuality many times they really don’t. They cry out that there is no male guidance in the home, but what they want is a man to take up their issues and their agendas and run with them. “Christian” feminism (an impossible uniting of words) has grossly distorted the clear instructions of scripture.

There should be no issue concerning handing over the car keys. And as Christian women are known for good works, contentment, fruit bearing in the home, and having the trust of our husbands, we won’t be needing those car keys half as much as in previous days.

Car Key Question #2 is: Do I have a contented spirit that submits to God’s plan which will result in fruitful biblical womanhood?

Car Key Resource #2 to help us evaluate is: The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs. Chapter One. OK, Chapter Two is great too. It can be found here. If you have the opportunity, purchase the book in hard copy and read the whole thing. It is life changing.

Stay tuned for Part Three

Interestingly enough, the part of Questions for Wives that has stirred the most questions is “Am I content to hand over the car keys to my husband and stay home all week?” 

So let’s take some time to talk about car keys.  Please take the time to read this entire article and its subsequent posts before making up your mind.  Although the question in the original document was listed under the finances section, it has implications for other areas of living.

Perhaps some of us remember back to the days of our youth when we first acquired that important document called a driver’s license.  Many of us remember asking our dads for the car keys, hoping for some independence.  What a thrill it was to have access to those wheels that could take us anywhere, remove us from home – and in some sense authority, and do our own thing.  Those car keys were the ticket to new places, new products to purchase, new uses of time, and new relationships.  It one sense, those car keys to this day are representative of what can be made available to us in our society.

The answer to the car keys lies in three areas:  defining the stay-at-home mom and family, understanding several biblical concepts, and having a vision for the reward of staying at home.  Let’s start with the definition of staying at home.

With the industrialization of our modern world, gone are the days when the family worked and planned together, educated and entertained together, and lived and loved together.  Recently there has been talk of men returning home to integrate their families and businesses, but one thing that we could get right today among home educators is that women can fully return home since they are already somewhat there.  So maybe there is a little something to those car keys and what they represent.

Overall, I think there is a myth surrounding the “stay-at-home” mom.  While it is true that some women have chosen to leave an out-of-the-home career in favor of staying home, do they truly stay at home?  And while home schooling mothers would claim to be stay-at-home moms, in reality do they really remain at home and create a home that is bursting with family life?  As I listen to mothers talking, few could give up the car keys and stay at home.  They have enrolled their children in co-op or enrichment classes, they shop ‘til they drop, they sign up for a steady run of women’s Bible studies, they consistently participate in the local city programs in the library and recreation centers, they keep their social calendars full of visiting, and rarely do they spend an entire day or two (never three, four or five) at home.  Without analyzing these activities as to whether in themselves they are right or wrong (which is not the point of this article), these things do beg the question of where the focus is and exactly where is the heart of the matriarch.

Every time we leave our homes, we have to decide if we are trading personal responsibility for outsourcing or abandoning home living skills for creating dependency on others.  Is the activity we are pursuing taking the place of parental education?  Are the items we are shopping for necessary for godly living?  Is the entertainment we are seeking truly refreshing and satisfying and obedient to God’s commands?  Is the thing we are pursuing outside of the home of great value to building the kingdom?  Are the activities we are involved with leading us to worldly pursuits and materialism? 

Are our priorities in order as we leave our home?  Have we ministered to the saints and extended hospitality in our homes before we seek outside activities?  Have we read our Bibles and prayed today before leaving home?  Have we given financially to true needs in the church before we spend hours shopping for ourselves?   Have we taken some of the burdens off of our husbands, such as home chores, so that he can have more time to study God’s Word and build relationships with our children?  Are there things we can be doing at home to enable our family and others to more fully serve the Lord?

Have we invested the hours needed today into our children to give them well trained hearts, minds, and hands before we leave our doorstep?   Do we have a nutritious meal prepared for the return of our husbands in the evening before we leave to spend the day outside of the home?  Will he return home to a peaceful, ordered atmosphere?  Could we save more money and teach our children more skills if we stayed home for lunch?

Are the outside influences worth the time and effort it takes to leave our home?  Are the people we visit examples of godly speech and conduct or do they tempt us to gossip or acquire bad attitudes?  Is our time with others purposeful and productive?  Do we want to immerse ourselves and our children in the music and sounds (noise) of our culture for several hours today?  Do we want to be bombarded visually with what we are see out there in the world…  billboards, storefronts, telephone poles, concrete, frantic drivers, and so forth?  Are the activities and educational programs we seek for our children free from peer influence and secular ideas?  Are the things we are pursuing outside of the home an effort to keep up with what everyone else is doing?  Are these things part of the world’s definition of living or do they line up with God’s ideas and design detailed in His Book?   Have we spent enough time in His Book to discern these things?
 
Are we training our children towards the desire to be “on the go” all the time and creating a restless spirit in them?  Or are our daughters developing a contented home spirit and are our sons developing skills necessary to maintaining a home over their lifetime?  Or do our children register boredom when at home?

And here is a good time to mention the internet.   In this age of technology, we can now leave our homes without the car keys and from a desktop we can search the entire world.  Perhaps this is the area that needs the most serious evaluation.  Do we know the companions we are linking to on the internet?  Are these people we really know and are confident that they are believers that love God’s Word and apply it?  Are the sites we visit so worth our time and attention that we would be excited to share them with Jesus Christ if he visited our home today?  Would He find them valuable in redeeming the time?  Are we feeding materialism as we shop in hundreds of internet storefronts?  Are internet shopping and relationships causing us to say to our child who needs our attention… ”just a sec ‘til I’m done?”   Do those seconds add up to minutes and hours?  Are we in practicality doing the same with the needs of those in our church?  Are we too busy to make a meal for the mother who just gave birth or have we neglected being on top of things so that we can arrive to church early to help with preparations, but  instead have spent hours on the internet this week?  Although a useful tool, the internet can be our car keys to areas of independence, to wasting time, to developing worldly appetites, and to temptations that we should flee.

Today might be a good time to take the toothpaste test.  When our first two daughters were eight and ten, we realized how much time outside activities were taking and how our home life and our finances were being eaten up by running around.  One evening James gave each of us a paper plate and a new tube of toothpaste.  He instructed us to take off the caps.  Then he asked us what things were the most important in life and how many resources they took up.  First we listed priority items like reading our Bibles, praying, and serving the saints.  With each item we had to squeeze out toothpaste on the paper plate.  Then we listed the important things that were non-negotiable like meals, laundry, and school.   More toothpaste filled our paper plates.  Our next group of activities was those things that embellish and enrich our home life.  More toothpaste came out of the tubes.   Very quickly we were running out of toothpaste with hardly any left, yet there were many activities remaining that needed time and energy and finances.  It became quite real to us that there were things that were just going to have to be laid by the wayside because we were out of toothpaste.  All of those activities were ones that were out of the home.  There was not one home activity that we needed to cut out of our schedule.   In order to truly put the important things in life first and do them well, we would have to stay home more.

Home educators might want to get their own tube of toothpaste for evaluation or keep a log of what happened and where they went this past week or month.   A wife could hand her log over to her husband for evaluation or a couple could go to their church elder for counsel on their weekly usage of resources.

Car Key Question #1 is:  Have we biblically evaluated  what we are doing in our lives?

Car Key Resource #1 to help us evaluate is:  “24 Hours is All You Get” by Susan Bradrick of Family Discipleship Ministries.

Stay tuned for Part Two…..