Readiness
God is a God of order. – He establishes hierarchies. – He created logic and math. – He calls for order in the church, saying He is a God of order.
God is a God of cleanness. – Old Testament law shows us His concern for cleanness, which includes cleanliness. – God calls regenerate hearts clean hearts. – God demands cleanness on the inside of the cup, but He does not ignore the state of its outside.
God is a God of beauty. – God has regard for beauty, God created a world in which beauty exists and beauty is valued. – God wanted His various houses throughout history to be beautiful. – God tells women specifically how to be beautiful — don’t be a gnostic — truly beautiful.
God is a God of peace. – He has waged and won war to make peace. – He gives peace to His people. – He is the source of peace.
So, my home should be a haven of order, cleanness (more than, but encompassing, cleanliness), beauty, and peace.
God is also a God of metaphors. He made the world this way. As a wife, the way I treat — in thought and action — my husband preaches about the church and Christ. As a parent, the way I treat — in thought and action — my children preaches about God and His children. As a laborer or a craftswoman, I preach about the laboring, crafting God in whose image I am made. My home, a tiny pocket in the wide world, preaches about what our eternal home is like. The symbolism, the strength of the metaphor, is always weak. But sanctification is the making stronger of these ties, as we become more and more like the One in Whose image we are made and Who has given us these metaphors and typologies to work under. But too often, it is not that the metaphor is weak, but that with my life I lie.
And so I take hold of one corner of my life, my household management, and examine it. I find that I am weak, but that God calls and makes me strong. It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and this applies even to doing dishes and sweeping the floor. I find that it is not about working more frantically, but using wisdom with the resources I have to do what tasks God has placed in front of me. It is about wisdom and diligence, but it is not about anxiety or endless to-do lists. Time, work, interruptions, opportunities, repetitions are all means, little by little, that God uses to grow us in wisdom, maturity, and dependence.
So, I am ready. Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to Your Word.
