SISTER WISDOM

Career confusion causes a lot of problems.

Cut the Confusion

Maybe you have children, or maybe you have a career, or maybe you have both. Chances are, you spend most of your time – far more time than you spend with your husband – on your children and/or your career. So it’s easy to get confused about your real job.

Take a Step Back

The real deal isn’t the kids or the job; the real deal, the main gig, the whole enchilada, my friends, is to serve, love, obey, and follow God. (Ha! You thought I was going to say something about your husband, didn’t you? Gotcha.)

Here’s the Part About Your Husband

If you’re convinced that your real job is to love and obey God, then you might be interested in what He puts down as your job description:

“Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.’”

(Genesis 2:18, NASB)

You know what happens next. God parades all the animals past Adam, knowing that none of them match. Adam sleeps. God pulls a rib. Adam wakes up: voila! Woman.

And that woman’s life, job, role, by God’s definition, is to be a helper suitable, a help meet, for this man.

It Boggles the 21^st Century Mind

It’s a mind switch for us to think in terms of being a help meet. It feels demeaning, second place to say that my primary role in life is to help someone else – my husband, in this case. But we don’t really understand what it means to be a help meet.

Think about the position of the President and the First Lady. His job we all know. Her job is a little more fluid: she has room to put her own passions (health care, education, environment) front and center. But her goal has to be to support her husband in what he does by what she does.

She does her own thing, but she represents her husband and his vision as she does.

Hello, First Lady

You are the First Lady of your home and family. Kids or no kids, it doesn’t matter. Your position doesn’t depend on the size of your family.

You have the freedom to arrange your life so that your own interests and passions have a big place, but those areas must be second to your first priority. And your automatic-ordained-first priority? Is your husband, and the call to support and help him by what you do with your life.

Islands in the Stream

We get into the habit of seeing a separation: this is my life, and I’m in charge of it. That is his life, and he’s in charge of that. And we pursue our separate lives, meeting at night to talk and hang out and sleep in the same bed.

Do you ever feel disconnected, isolated from your husband, but can’t explain why? Maybe there’s no big conflict and you don’t understand why you feel lonely in this marriage that should be so perfect.

This is why.

It Is Not Good to Be Alone

Either God knows what He’s doing, or we’re all on our own. Pick one. If you pick the latter, good luck. I choose the former, and I’m living my life according and building my marriage according to that premise: God is smart and He doesn’t lie.

You want your life to make sense and be meaningful, but as soon as I start talking about “help meet,” you start having a little panic attack. You feel the chance to make choices, pursue passions, create meaning just slide away.

Help, Help, I’m Being Repressed

Being a help meet does not mean you can’t have a job, a career, your own business. It doesn’t mean you have to be a Mom. It doesn’t mean you have to emulate Martha Stewart (minus the jail-time). It doesn’t mean you lay down at your husband’s feet and say, “Do with me what you will…” (though that might make for a great at-home date night).

What Does It Mean, Then?

The first thing it means it that you start getting to know your husband’s vision for life. You need to know his heart and goals before you know how to support him. Talk. Ask questions. Listen. Observe.

The second thing it means is that you start seeing your priorities within the context of your husband’s vision. When you do that, you’ll start seeing how who you are and who he is fit together. God’s like that. He has a plan.

5-Minute Marriage Check

I’m going to give you an example of how to look at your priorities within your husband’s vision, from my own life.

After you read through it, try filling out your own version: your husband’s vision and your priorities.

Do your current priorities line up with your husband’s vision? Where can they change? What would your priorities look like if you considered your husband’s vision first?

Joe’s vision includes…

• entrepreneurship, involvement in the family business
• lots of hospitality
• kids who are well-trained and fun to be around
• lots of adventures
• a wife who doesn’t waste time, who is involved in stuff that is meaningful and helpful
• giving to and helping people
• loving Jesus and building the kingdom of God
• a family that is together more than we are apart
• home education
• being creative
• being active

My priorities, fitting into his vision…

• being frugal
• keeping our house decently clean and orderly and cooking great, healthy meals; having a comfortable, welcoming home
• training our kids
• being flexible, trying new things
• writing
• helping others through my writing
• having a relationship with Jesus, worshiping, teaching our kids about Jesus
• focusing on stuff we do together
• developing our home school curriculum, teaching our kids
• learning, reading, growing
• staying active and healthy

Your turn: first put down your current priorities. Try to make a list of ten. Then put down ten points from what you know of your husband’s vision. How do they line up?

5-Minute Action Point

I can promise you one thing; if you will give it an honest effort, shifting your priorities to line up with your husband’s vision will result in a more fulfilling, peaceful, and interesting life.

Meaningful isn’t the problem here. The only reason we usually resist this is because that resident ugly creature, Pride, pitching a fit about it.

Your mission is to take a five-minute break from Pride’s influence and think for yourself.

Look at those ten points that represent your husband’s vision.

Now make a list of ten priorities that fit that vision.

How different are these priorities from your current ones? Are you willing to make some changes?

What is one change you will make today?

Image courtesy of Lielo.

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This post is {Day 11} of the Build a Better Marriage Challenge.

It’s a 30-day challenge to be deliberate about building a better marriage. We’ll talk about some of the common obstacles to a better marriage (marriage killers) and some of the important habits for a successful marriage (marriage keys). We’ll also work through some of the misconceptions that affect our marriage, faulty thinking we’ve picked up from our culture, our pasts, and maybe even from the church. Each day’s reading will end with a 5-minute marrige check and a 5-minute action point, so you can take it on home.

Join in via the Mr Linky on the challenge page. You can also just read along, but remember that all challenge participants will receive a free copy of the ebook at the end of the challenge.

Here’s to better, stronger, happier marriages!

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