Hard Work

I meet with a homeschooling “book club” where we are studying Homeschooling With a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Teri Maxwell.  Last week’s chapter was on hard work and how if we just accept that that is the way it is going to be, we will likely be able to better maintain our meek and quiet spirit.  We must accept that as homeschooling moms we will not have the amount of free time that at-home moms with kids in school 7 hours each day will.  Very likely our evenings and weekends will be filled with cleaning and planning, not too much relaxation.  Also, it’s time for us to accept that we were created to be our husband’s helpers and not the other way around.  Doing it God’s way makes life and marriage so much more wonderful!

 

 

We found some wonderful scripture which shows us that the Lord expects us to work hard (and that there are rewards!).  Here are some:

 

Proverbs 14:23  All hard work brings a profit.

 

 

Proverbs 6:6-11  Go to the ant, you sluggard;  consider its ways and be wise!  It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.  How long will you lie there, you sluggard?  When will you get up from your sleep?

 

 

I Corinthians 9:25-27  Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.  They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.  Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.  No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

 

 

John 12:24-25  I tell you the truth, unless a kernal of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

 

 

Luke 9:23  Then he [Jesus] said to them all:  “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

 

 

Proverbs 31:27-28  She watches over the affairs of her houshold and does not eat the bread of idleness.  Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.

 

 

Colossians 3:23-24  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart [enthusiastically], as working for the Lord, not for men since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

 

 

Titus 2:4-5  Then they [older women] can train the younger women to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

 

 

I found this last scripture to be very important.  Not only are we to be busy in doing all these things (recognizing that there will not be much “down time”), but it is also so that no one will be able to malign the word of God on our account.  I immediately thought of Mel Gibson and how through his unwise decision to drink (which is just one of many unwise things we can choose to do with “free time”), now many are maligning the word of God.  I pray that I will keep busy doing the Lord’s work so that won’t happen to me!