Sunday, November 23, 2008

Nancy Leigh DeMoss on homemaking


One of the things you’ll notice as we get into this passage [Proverbs 31] is that the standard of godliness we’re looking at here is not a picture of a woman who becomes a religious hermit. Now, she does need to spend time alone with God to become a godly woman, but she doesn’t spend most of her time alone. She comes out of that room, she comes out of that place, and lives out that walk and that relationship with God and that devotion to God, lives it out in the laboratory of life. In the nitty-gritty, day-in and day-out of life.

I remember talking to one woman who was so excited about what God was doing in her quiet time, and she was just loving being in the Word and praying. She was saying, “I could spend hours every day doing this.” But as we began to talk, I realized there were some major issues in her marriage.

I began to explore how could this woman have such a devotion for God and a heart for God, how could she have such problems in her marriage and with her children, and other stuff started to come out. Then I realized here was a woman who was defining spirituality as her devotional life. Her husband, understandably, was not impressed.

He wanted some food. He wanted to be able to see through the clutter in the house. He wanted her to live out her spirituality in her home, and that’s really what this passage addresses.

Now, that doesn’t mean — and we’ll see in this passage - that there is no other place that a woman works. But the first place that she works is in her home. Until she has cared for the needs of her home, she has not got the right to go out and tend to the needs elsewhere. The core, the central place of her ministry, of her work is out of her home.
If you want to read more see the full transcript at Revive Our Hearts

2 comments:

Lucy said...

Just wanted to say I appreciate all the work you're putting into this series Jean - very helpful stuff :) I'm learning some lessons I've needed to learn for a long time.

Jean said...

That's great, Lucy, I'm glad you're finding it helpful.