give a keynote address the next day and still had to pull my notes together. Plus, I had to organize two workshops, and I enjoy my most productive time during the early-morning hours. But God made it clear I was to put my wife’s needs over the nine hundred people scheduled to hear me the next day. Lisa would essentially become a “single mother” the rest of the week in the absence of her husband, and her heavenly Father wanted her to get a little rest before that task overtook her.
Of course, I can’t do this every day. I don’t even do it most days. But I still think that, at times, God will ask us to let work suffer so that we can care for our spouse. I didn’t arrive at that conference as prepared as I wanted to be, but my first and best commitment must be to Lisa, not to any employer.
In the same way, you too should expect God to call you from time to time to make some vocational sacrifices so that you can help your husband. My friend Melody Rhode has often impressed me in this regard. I’m convinced she has a groundbreaking book in her, but she has chosen to refrain from actively pursuing it right now because of family responsibilities. She works three days a week as a marriage and family therapist and believes that any more vocational effort would interfere with her ability to love and care for her family. She does, however, fully intend to pursue the writing of her book when her family commitments allow it.
As Melody and I discussed vocational and family responsibilities, I found her advice very refreshing. “Life is about compromises,” she observed. We shoot for the ideal, but we have to live in the real.Family, of course, always comes before personal ambition. Some couples may decide to drastically change their style of living so that the wife doesn’t have to work full-time or perhaps at all. Some of our friends made that choice and have achieved thrilling results. Of course, they had to learn how to do without certain things, but the intimacy that followed, combined with the sense of family togetherness that resulted, has convinced them that the trade-off has been more than worth it.
Whatever choices you and your husband make, I pray that your decisions will draw the two of you together. Working two jobs to provide a home and food for your children can become a cooperative effort when you support each other, show interest in each other, and make those occasional sacrifices that show you care.
If, in the midst of all this, you can convince your husband that you’re on his side, committed to his welfare and well-being, then you’ll likely discover an intimacy and a loyalty that know no bounds. How you help your husband depends on your family’s situation, but the call to help your husband remains.
How can you help your husband today?
* Some scholars break these two labels into additional distinctions.
Chapter 7: A Claim, a Call,
and a Commitment
Focusing on Personal Responsibilities
I had my seminary students laughing one day as we compared Mother’s Day sermons with Father’s Day sermons. The former are almost always odes to the glory, strength, wonder, and beauty of a woman’s love; the latter invariably chastise men for not stepping up to their responsibilities and calling.
When we discuss the word responsibility , for some reason the church community usually thinks primarily of men. Sermons directed at men almost always talk about responsibility; I don’t think I can recall a single time I’ve heard the word used with women —except when I read the Bible.
In Titus 2:4, Paul uses a curious word when talking about older women training younger women to love their husbands. According to Dr. Gordon Fee, “The verb translated ‘train’ . . . is highly unusual, literally meaning to ‘bring someone to his or her senses.’ ” Dr. Fee suggests that in its context the verb may mean “something like ‘wise them up’ as to their responsibilities as wives.” 1
Paul had a keen
Of course, I can’t do this every day. I don’t even do it most days. But I still think that, at times, God will ask us to let work suffer so that we can care for our spouse. I didn’t arrive at that conference as prepared as I wanted to be, but my first and best commitment must be to Lisa, not to any employer.
In the same way, you too should expect God to call you from time to time to make some vocational sacrifices so that you can help your husband. My friend Melody Rhode has often impressed me in this regard. I’m convinced she has a groundbreaking book in her, but she has chosen to refrain from actively pursuing it right now because of family responsibilities. She works three days a week as a marriage and family therapist and believes that any more vocational effort would interfere with her ability to love and care for her family. She does, however, fully intend to pursue the writing of her book when her family commitments allow it.
As Melody and I discussed vocational and family responsibilities, I found her advice very refreshing. “Life is about compromises,” she observed. We shoot for the ideal, but we have to live in the real.Family, of course, always comes before personal ambition. Some couples may decide to drastically change their style of living so that the wife doesn’t have to work full-time or perhaps at all. Some of our friends made that choice and have achieved thrilling results. Of course, they had to learn how to do without certain things, but the intimacy that followed, combined with the sense of family togetherness that resulted, has convinced them that the trade-off has been more than worth it.
Whatever choices you and your husband make, I pray that your decisions will draw the two of you together. Working two jobs to provide a home and food for your children can become a cooperative effort when you support each other, show interest in each other, and make those occasional sacrifices that show you care.
If, in the midst of all this, you can convince your husband that you’re on his side, committed to his welfare and well-being, then you’ll likely discover an intimacy and a loyalty that know no bounds. How you help your husband depends on your family’s situation, but the call to help your husband remains.
How can you help your husband today?
* Some scholars break these two labels into additional distinctions.
Chapter 7: A Claim, a Call,
and a Commitment
Focusing on Personal Responsibilities
I had my seminary students laughing one day as we compared Mother’s Day sermons with Father’s Day sermons. The former are almost always odes to the glory, strength, wonder, and beauty of a woman’s love; the latter invariably chastise men for not stepping up to their responsibilities and calling.
When we discuss the word responsibility , for some reason the church community usually thinks primarily of men. Sermons directed at men almost always talk about responsibility; I don’t think I can recall a single time I’ve heard the word used with women —except when I read the Bible.
In Titus 2:4, Paul uses a curious word when talking about older women training younger women to love their husbands. According to Dr. Gordon Fee, “The verb translated ‘train’ . . . is highly unusual, literally meaning to ‘bring someone to his or her senses.’ ” Dr. Fee suggests that in its context the verb may mean “something like ‘wise them up’ as to their responsibilities as wives.” 1
Paul had a keen
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