We Are Equal

THE SHARE OF THOSE WHO GO INTO BATTLE MUST BE LIKE THE SHARE OF THOSE WHO STAY WITH THE SUPPLIES. 1 Samuel 30.24.

The text from the Bible that we are considering deals primarily with the soldiers, those on the battlefield and others in the barracks. It was a splendid principle that David set up for the army. But it has a parallel in our modern-day family and society life.

Sometime ago, I was writing the manuscript of my book on “witnessing in the market place”. The work of women in the house and mothers at home seemed to me as important or even more important than the work the men folk accomplish in the offices. But, how do we Christians consider our womenfolk who stay at home and hold that front for us? We men are out working all day and night and we leave our children entirely under the care of our wives. For long, they have been subjugated, doing supposedly ‘a menial kind of task’. They were belittled by the common name we gave them – ‘housewives!’ It is time that we Christians take a radical step toward the proper recognition of our wives and mothers.

A good principle to apply could be borrowed from the rule that David prescribed for his army. We Christians are in the Lord’s army. While the men are on the battlefront our women are holding the fort for us! They are not only the keepers of our belongings but more importantly they are the keepers and trainers of our children. They must be given equal status and more respect than ever.

The duties they perform, the responsibilities they carry and the blessings they are capable of bringing are enumerated in the excerpt from my book given below: “There are few places as strategically important to us as our homes where mothers work. It is their workplace or ‘marketplace’. Hence they form more than half of the world’s workforce. It is there that the lives of our future generations are moulded and their destinies settled for this world and for the next! If only the world had never coined that belittling name ‘housewives’ for that noble and honourable profession of ‘mothers and homemakers”, we would have given them more respect and mothers would have had more self-pride.

Homemakers or mothers should be proud of their profession for it is their divine calling! They should consider their homes their God-ordained domain and thank God for it. Every member of the family is a gracious gift from your Father in heaven to be loved and cherished with utmost care. It is the mother’s divine duty to pray for, feed, clothe, guide, train and help each one to develop to his or her highest potential in God. Together with her godly husband, she must accomplish this.

When her worldly, non-Christian counterparts swear and curse at every chore they have to do, the godly mother must view each task as a deed done unto God and a divine duty performed for the welfare of the members of her ‘home church’. The Lord has made her ‘the lady bishop or pastor’ of her little flock and she must give God an account for each one. In the measure of the gravity and responsibility with which she accepts and discharges her God-given duties, she will be respected by her family members, her church and the society, and richly rewarded by God!”

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, You created us man and woman and gave us our separate functions to perform. Help us to mutually respect and equally share our rewards. Amen.