Stay At Your Post
Doug Wildman
COVID-19 has brought sickness and uncertainty. We need to remain steady in our faith for the sake of our families. Husbands, this is especially for you. You are called to set the spiritual tone in your home. Your family needs to see your confidence in the Lord. Fortunately, this is a deeply grounded confidence. He will bring you through this current crisis. Jesus said, “Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?” Matthew 6:26 (NLT).We serve a God who cares for the needs of birds. You can have full confidence that He will provide for you as well. Speak this to your wife. She needs your faith in God right now.
Wives, I encourage you to open wide your hearts also. 2 Corinthians 6:13 (NIV) Marriage is a living sign of the Gospel. Your husband is called to sacrificial leadership, demonstrating God’s love. You’re invited to respond to his leadership – but not make it more difficult. It’s easy to get caught up in the weeds of your personal preferences, but your husband bears the weight of responsibility for caring for you and your family. You need to open your heart to his love without being critical.
During a particularly dark season in Paul’s ministry, he said,
… don’t frustrate God’s work… throwing a question mark over everything we’re doing.
Our work as God’s servants gets validated—or not—in the details.
People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly.
2 Corinthians 6:3 (MSG)
Paul continues in 2 Corinthians 6, to describe the difficulties Christians faced even while they were endeavoring to be faithful. The people of Corinth worshipped Aphrodite, the goddess of love, but the witness of this Jewish sect known as the Christians forced them to see what real love was. It was an uncomfortable truth. Some turned to the living God and away from temple prostitution. Others willfully suppressed the nudging of the Holy Spirit, exchanging truth for the comfort of tradition, Romans 1:18 (NLT). Listen to Paul as he pleads with the people of Corinth.
Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open,
spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you.
Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection.
Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!
1 Corinthians 6:11-13 (MSG)
Capture the significance of what Paul is saying: A closed heart keeps us living small lives. This is a principle that applies not only to pagans but to us as well. As Henry Blackaby said, Wherever you see God at work, consider it your invitation to join Him in the work He is doing.1 Sometimes the work of God doesn’t fit within our comfort zones. Join Him anyway. Sometimes the work of God requires us to humble ourselves and give something up, something that we’ve been holding onto tightly. Join Him anyway. Husbands, true leadership means listening to God and not just our desires.
Jesus’ parting words to his disciples was our mission statement:
… go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples
to obey all the commands I have given you.
Matthew 28:19-20 (NLT)
Couples, your mission has been refined to include each other in the process of expanding the Kingdom of God. As we said previously, People are watching us as we stay at our post. 2 Corinthians 6:3, and that’s a good thing if we stand as a unified force under the banner of God. The world needs to see what the Gospel looks like in the context of marriage. I’m not talking about marriages that never argue. I’m talking about marriages that have each other’s back through thick and thin. The source for this kind of relationship is Christ Himself. Our commitment to Christ will be fleshed out and expressed in how we treat each other. Men, will you accept the challenge to trust God and set the spiritual tone in your home? Ladies, will you accept the challenge to accept your husband’s leadership without criticism?
Right now, God is calling us to work together and prepare ourselves to show the world what real love is. With all the uncertainties on the horizon, you better believe that the world is searching for answers. You just haven’t seen it yet because of social distancing. The day is coming soon when the quarantine is lifted. Now is the time for you to build up what you have in the LORD and with each other. A harvest is coming. Take full advantage of the time you have. Lay your old self aside and put on the new self that is created to be like God—truly righteous and holy Ephesians 4:20-24 (NLT).
If you need personal or marriage counseling, please call 864.688.8355, and someone from Brookwood Care Ministries will contact you.