Look Well to the Ways of Your Household

 

She looks well to the ways of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Proverbs 31:27

3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 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 (emphasis mine)

Mama’s I want to encourage you today and not come down hard on you, but to have you truly ponder the question, “Do I look well to the ways of my household?”

It is important to note in Titus 2:5 we are called to be working at home. Other translations call it keepers of our homes or busy at home or workers at home or home lovers or take care of their homes. The idea in this verse is telling us to take care of our homes. Home is our primary ministry. Our husbands should be able to trust us to be diligent in the work the Lord has called us to.

“There were some women who supposed that, the moment they became Christians, they were to run about everywhere. “No,” says the apostle, “let them keep at home.” There is no gain to the Christian Church when the love, and the industry, and the zeal, which ought to make a happy home, are squandered upon something else.”
~ Charles Spurgeon

In Proverbs 31:27 we are told to look well to the ways of our household. Our husband is the head of the family and we are to submit to his authority, but we are in charge of the management of our household.  There is much to deal with in just the basic upkeep of the home and food and clothing. We should take delight in making our homes a haven for our family to come home to. There should be a sense of order and calmness in the home.

But our role goes so much beyond the basic upkeep, doesn’t it? As part of managing and caring for our homes come the care and affection of the loved ones, the Lord has placed in our care.  Hugs and kisses and many I love you’s said and lived out in service to one another should be part of your everyday life.

We don’t just need to care for their physical needs but also and so important in the care of their spiritual needs.

What is the example you are setting forth here? How are your conversations at home? Are they in accordance with God’s Word (Philippians 4:8)? One of the ways we look well to the ways of our household is in our Christian conduct.

Are we intentional in the spiritual training of our children?  Without taking the time to plan we can find ourselves eating the bread of idleness and not taking the time to teach our children about the Lord.

Don’t get caught up in comparing yourself with what and how other families are doing spiritually. It is enough to be concerned with the needs of your own family.  You know the special needs of your children, your know where their tendencies to sin are, you know your own sinful tendencies so be diligent, prayerful, and intentional in taking special care to meet and address the spiritual needs in your family.

My hope today is to spur you on to manage your home well and give your household a high priority. Mama’s we are not to be lazy. Use your time wisely and manage it well. We are to manage our children and homes and it takes hard work and lots of love to do that well. We are to lay down our lives for our husbands and children and Who is our perfect example of this?? Jesus. If we are in Christ we have everything from the Lord through the Holy Spirit within us to meet the needs of our family and manage our homes well.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:2-3

What is the reward of living out our faith in the care of our home and family? In verse 28 it tells us:

Her children rise up and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
Proverbs 31:28

That is a beautiful picture but listen to me ladies even if your husband and your children do not reverence you here on this earth if you are known by the God of the Universe His love for you is perfect and we need to do all things for His glory. We need to live to please an audience of One. Seek first His kingdom in all things.

May you do your best here on this earth, look to Him to meet all your needs, and be obedient to the task He has called you to do.

There needs to be a homemaker exercising some measure of skill, imagination, creativity, desire to fulfill needs and give pleasure to others in the family. How precious a thing is the human family. It it not worth some sacrifice in time, energy, safety, discomfort, work? Does anything come forth without work?”
~ Edith Schaeffer