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