Building Your House

Each spring brings many blessings to our lives and I'm forever grateful for the variety God offers us in the natural world. Every three months He changes the sights, sounds, textures and aromas by bringing us a new season. His many seasonal surprises for us are gifts...heart gifts, grace gifts...to render the human condition less tragic. There's always something to look forward to and that greatly encourages the human heart.

But over the past couple years, I've found that each season change brings new challenges for me as a mother and homemaker and teacher. Greatest among them is distraction. In the spring, for example, the weather and the flowers beckon us outside and as we follow their sweet aroma, we can get off track with other responsibilities. It takes time for new rhythms to develop and take root each season. A family's rhythms will naturally change with the seasons.

This spring, like last spring, I again pulled out my Managers of Their Homes scheduling book, by Steve and Teri Maxwell. As I work through a spring schedule for our family, I'll be sharing bits of wisdom from the authors. All of their materials are scripturally based, something I dearly love about their ministry. Jesus is always Lord.



God has given us a powerful example and analogy of scheduling in the natural world. Everything He has created, from atoms to the universe, has a periodic cycle. There is a timetable God has applied to each part of His creation. This is easily seen in the weather. Year by year, each season comes at its "scheduled" time, bringing with it predicable changes. Here we have a picture of our daily-life schedules. These change, too, as the "seasons" in our families change. Teri Maxwell p. 1, Managers of Their Homes

What does this speak to me? It reminds me that God loves order, not confusion. When we allow our false gods to distract us from needful tasks, our daily lives become battlegrounds for Satan and sin; selfishness and discouragement take root in our homes, poisoning our relationships and damaging our witness.

When we order our lives according to what God wants us to accomplish, we experience peace and our homes have a sweet, godly aroma...the aroma of righteousness, not the stench of sin.

We live in an era of distraction. In an era of me-first. A willingness to get up each morning and commit the day to the Lord, with the help of a prayed-about schedule, will keep us insulated from the idol trap.

1 Timothy 5:14
"I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully."

Let's guide our homes, my friends, for the glory of God.

If you've tried scheduling and failed in the past, let me give you a tip from my own experience. The failure rests squarely on the mother, in the form of sin.  As the guide of the house, we must have the strength and integrity to just do the next thing. Not get distracted by the phone or our e-mail or the news, or our scrapbooking or gardening. We can schedule some down time for our interests, but until that segment comes, we must endeavor to do the next thing, to the glory of God.

In our Smart Phone- and Facebook- and Twitter-obsessed society, the person who can keep on going will triumph. We've become slaves to the idol of recognition. We want to be recognized, celebrated, so we stay attached to devices that will give us another "hit" of recognition, as though it were a drug. And in fact, studies show that checking statuses on social media stimulates our pleasure center, causing us to do it again and again.

Maybe your idol is something different, but regardless, one thing is sure. You have one. Satan assures that we all have them...some of us more than others, depending on our time in the Word and in prayer.

Just say no; not me. Let's diligently do the next thing and sing praises to the Lord, squashing Satan's voice.