Martin Luther said that, “what you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God.” How can this be? Wiping noses (not to mention rear ends) gets pretty old after awhile. Sometimes a Christian mother’s heart grows weary of the work her calling demands, and she doesn’t feel very spiritual.
How can we maintain a vision for the holiness of the calling God has given to the Christian mother, particularly when that calling doesn’t feel very spiritual?
We need to remember that our faith is about fact, not feelings. Our culture places such an emphasis on what we feel. We think if we feel spiritual, then surely we are spiritual! If we feel un-spiritual, then that must be true, as well.
Are feelings the authenticator of truth? The Bible says in Jeremiah that “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” The truth is, we cannot rely on our feelings to tell us whether what we are doing is spiritual. We must rely on that one thing which never changes: God’s Word.
Let’s look at the Proverbs 31 woman. When we look at the passage, it is full of her work and sacrifices. Not one mention is made of whether she feels “spiritual” when she “gets up while it is still dark”, “provides food for her family”, “sets about her work vigorously”, or “watches over the affairs of her household”. Her feelings are not why she is rightly looked to as a model of the Christian woman. Her obedience is.
Obedience in the Christian life is both a privilege and a spiritual duty. Therefore, the Christian mother can always know that if she has been obedient to the Lord in serving her family, then what she does in her house “is worth as much as if [she] did it up in heaven for our Lord God.” And that is spiritual.
Thanks so much for sharing this. It was an encouragement and great reminder. I hope you don’t mind a shared a link to your article on my blog because it really ministered to me.