Let me tell you a little secret: Work is never enough. Let me explain what I mean by this and a few of the common problems we deal with as our work of being moms and wives.
When we think of our work, we don’t always think of it as connected to our life with Christ. It’s sort of a separate thing we do or we put it side by side to our lives as Christians, but work is deeply integrated with our relationship with God. The life you live and the work you do will never be enough to satisfy your thirst for completed work. Ouch. But Jesus’ finished work on the cross and His 33 years of life are enough because He worked perfectly and the work that He did satisfied the wrath of God to save us from our sin. Now that’s the kind of work that is worthy of our attention. Let me show you a few ways we struggle with our work here on earth:
1. Discontentment with work.
This can apply to all and everyone’s situation. We have this nagging and empty feeling of “this isn’t satisfying” or “could I do something else or more?” Listen, no matter what kind of work you have, you will always have days like this. This is something truly difficult for me, personally. For me, I see other mommas able to care for their homes and run a business or have a work from home job and still manage their household. This gets me thinking, “Could I do more? Is what I have enough?” The Lord, for me, has always shut down me doing anything else besides running my home. This is how He’s choosing to sanctify me. This is not true for everyone, but I’m glad taking care of my home is my only job. It’s causing my faith to deepen and my contentment to be in Christ and not my work. As believers, we know that Jesus never felt this way i.e. felt like He was lacking, could do more, etc. because He was, of course, God himself, but was also doing the will of the Father. (Look at the book John) The will of His Father was for Jesus to go to the cross and be raised up to be seated at the right hand of His Father. We look to Christ and when we consider His work, we can be content in the work God has given us. We can trust His character that He can only give us good work.
2. Idolatry of Productivity
Back in May of this year, I noticed that I was working in my home with anxiety in my heart, doing tasks as quickly as possible, I was perpetually tired, and not getting my lists finished. I noticed that my chief end goal was to be as productive as possible, THEN my day was characterized as a good day. What if my goal wasn’t to have a clean house by the end of the day? What if my goal wasn’t to have homemade bread on the table by dinner? What if my goal wasn’t to fold all the laundry? Instead, what if my ultimate goal was to enjoy king Jesus? What if my goal was to know him more? What if it was to please God? That is our goal, sweet friend. Our goal is to glorify God and honor His name. If not, then there must be confession & repentance of our idolatry. We do not want our children & husbands to see that productivity is the end goal. We do not want them to chase after emptiness that bring guilt and “failure”. We want them to taste and know that the Lord is good. The Lord is the reason why we work, love, clean, help, & sing.
3. Hard Work & Heavy Laden
Let me brag on my husband for a minute, he works very hard for our family. He’s constantly thinking of us and working for us and I couldn’t be more thankful the Lord blessed our family with him. He’s the best. While he’s being amazing, I started to notice, over the past few years, how lazy I am. I would find myself sitting down for long periods of time looking through social media or looking at the girls baby pictures. Then, he would come home and I had little to nothing done. God knows us and He gave us good work to do. I was not doing the work, once I had my third girl, I had no choice but to work my butt off. Three children needed me constantly and my husband, you quickly find that just keeping everyone alive and clean is hard work and exhausting. Then Jesus gives us the verse, “Come to me all you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Doesn’t that sound phenomenal? King Jesus offering our weary and heavy laden selves rest. He knows our work is hard, in fact he said so to Adam in the garden after they sinned that he would work hard. Jesus is our place of rest when we constantly pour ourselves out all day everyday.
4. Godly Success
The world’s version of success: Nice house, nice vacations, name brand baby clothes, jobs with lots of money/opportunity, good kids, and you can add to this ginormous list forever and ever. This is why I have such a hard time with self-control regarding social media. I don’t know about y’all, but it’s tough for me to simply enjoy other people on social media because my sin so quickly jumps in with envy, jealousy, and bitterness. The success of others should bring us to rejoice with those who rejoice. Friend, in our homes, these are not our end goals. We keep our minds heavenward and with a multigenerational mission of making disciples while loving our husbands. Success, in terms of the Bible, is to love and serve our husbands. It is to love and serve our children and to disciple them to know and fear the Lord. Another important part of godly success, means being dependent on the Word, enjoying God’s good gifts, satisfaction in God’s purpose for our lives (contentment), & fulfillment in honoring God & his name. This is how we should go about our day. This is the ultimate goal, not productivity, obedient children, perfectly prepared/healthy food/snacks, clean house, etc. None of these things alone bring God glory. Our love & devotion to him bring about these things as fruitfulness.
Thankfully, the work of Jesus is complete and we can rest in His finished work. Now, we can do our work with joy, contentment, & rest because our Savior has done it all!
What are some ways you struggle with your work? Do you present the love of Christ through your work? Let me know in the comments and let’s discuss!