Daily Devotional Dives - Busy With What?

A Wise Woman Builds

Older women, younger women; note Titus doesn't say "old" nor "young" (Titus 2:3-5).  There will always be someone older or younger than you.  Check up on your station in life; look around you.  Who is older?  Who is younger than you?  Could you get "busy" relating?

The older women are supposed to train the younger ones.  Train them to do "what is good": to love their husbands and children; to be pure; to be busy at home (hmmm, that's a stickler); to be kind; to be subject to their husbands (another hurdle for some).  Why must the older train the younger sisters?  "So that no one will malign the Word of God".

To be able to train the younger women, the older ones have to be engaged in those noble tasks already.  They have to live it out.  To do so and then to encourage the younger ones in these ways too would be a God-send, and wonderful gift to the younger woman I think.

To be self-controlled instead of screaming at ones' children.  Do you have trouble with this anyone?  My mother always used to say "speak softly and carry a big stick".  Good advice from an "older woman".  There would be many other areas that could come under the "self-control" heading too, not just the angry outbursts.  No doubt you know your 'thing'.

"To be busy at home strikes me."  Do you laze about?  Or are you industrious?  Are you even at home?  If all the older and younger women are busy outside the home, how are they to be busy at home?  How are they to teach the younger women, and how will the younger women learn?

Granted many have to work to make ends meet but get home and be busy as much as one can.

If you are a stay-at-home Mom, you may be asked, "Do you work?"  Oh boy!  What a loaded question!  Of course these Moms work!!  Make a list of all you do in a day, print it out and laminate it, whip it out so all these questioners can see.  Ask back, would you like to come for a day and do my schedule?  

Ha, ha.  

Well, a better answer may be, "Of course I work;  I'm busy at home".  Busy trying to love my husband and children; busy trying to be self-controlled, kind and subject to my husband.  Show them Proverbs chapter 31 as to how you are busy doing all that loving.  A wholesome busyness indeed.  Carefully groomed but not overdone.  Caring for the poor.  Caring for the servant girls should you be so fortunate to have them (or part-time help, in these days).  Sewing the clothes for family.  Cooking.  Turning what skills she has into a way to earn for the family while still keeping to the home hearth.  Busy doing good works, buying and selling property to put in a garden to feed the family troops and those poor.  Wow, what a woman!  

Yup, she works.  Yes, she's busy.

Older women please take your 'job' of teaching the younger ones seriously.  When I was a 'younger' woman, I would have loved to have someone take me under their wing.  Where were they?  But God was merciful to me and brought me many books to read on the subject since I couldn't get the hands-on personal touch.  Sisters-in-Christ, I plead with you to look around and see who could learn from your experience and gently teach.

Younger women, do look around and see who could teach you and don't be shy to ask.  Maybe you do have your mother's nearby who help you.  But do let some of  God's other older women help too.  This not in a busy body way, but in that relationship in which God provides even in such practical ways.

I really liked the movie War Room.  A closet turned into a room for prayer.  That is good and the woman who was the mighty prayer warrior in the story, didn't keep it all to herself.  Try to watch that movie if you haven't already, and see how superbly the older woman taught the younger one.  See the far reaching results.

Now, get busy...

                                                        ~ERC  2017~
                                Originally written March 1995; adapted for blog July 2017