DG posted an article on women and work that I’d been working on (get that, working on?) for a while. It’s a tricky topic to talk about because of the pet ponies so many keep in the stall on this one. But how many of us are willing to really work the way God requires? Having totally crucified our selfish ambitions and laid down our lives? How many of us are hoping to be a living sacrifice? I think lots of us are hoping for something a little more affirming, a little easier, a little less exhausting, and a lot more, well, fun.

But there’s a paradox that IS the Christian life: death to life. A million deaths each day doesn’t end in the grave. It ends in JOY. So here’s my attempt at understanding our call to work as women.

The pertinent question for women entering the workforce or motherhood or setting up their home or any sphere of work is this: Am I faithfully obeying God as his child by meeting the genuine needs of others, or am I pursuing self-actualization, self-fulfillment, or selfish ambition apart from him?

Our faithfulness first requires a kind of death — death to self and selfish ambition. Yet death leads to life — life in Christ, through him, and for him. What exactly that death looks like will vary from person to person, but in every case, it will be a gospel act, a spectacle of crucifixion with Christ.

For a single mom who must earn an income, prioritizing Christ and the home may mean doing what it takes to provide for her kids’ needs and spending herself at work, then at home, at great cost to herself — to the glory of God and for the good of her children.

For a single woman without kids, it may mean considering cross-cultural missions or walking fearlessly into her job, while saving some reserves for the life of the church or investing in her neighborhood or opening her home — whether it’s an apartment or a house or a room — so she can share what she has, especially Christ in her.

For a married, stay-at-home mom of littles, it may mean seemingly endless physical tasks and training, laying down the pre-motherhood feelings of proficiency as she can no longer earn an “A” for her hard work or receive a promotion.

For the mom with a part-time job that helps financially but isn’t essential, it may mean laying that job down and the extra financial cushion so that she can intentionally sow seeds of the gospel in her children. Or it might mean keeping that job and using her gifts to serve others.

For the woman whose husband is facing long-term unemployment or disability, it may mean becoming the breadwinner or caretaker, shouldering a larger portion of responsibility than she had perhaps desired.

For a mom whose children are older and gaining independence, it may mean a shift in the type of work she does, bravely considering the options and doing things she hasn’t done in a long time, or trying something brand new.

Sometimes our circumstances aren’t ideal. Often they are not ideal. This isn’t heaven. And the call to lay down our lives will take different forms. But this is our calling, with its countless manifestations. Not because we’re the one who finally will save our kids or our family or our neighbors or ourselves. We’re not Christ. But we are Christians. We gladly follow the God-man who laid down his own life to meet our truest needs. We gladly echo his great sacrifice in our little deaths-to-self.

We seek to faithfully live the actual life God has given us, not the one we hoped for or wish we had. We take the principles God himself has given us — for work and dominion, the priority of the home, generosity and hospitality, caring for the children (and adults) God has given us (their bodies and souls) — and we apply them to the real life in front of us. Not the ideal. Not the fantasy. But the actual life God has given us.

…

Our work is not about us. It’s not about making a name for ourselves with a fabulous career or being superior because things went well for us and we’re doing it all “right” or trying to “have it all.” If we ache to make a name for ourselves — in self-glorification — we should remember that we serve the one whose name is above all names. He will not suffer us as competitors. And far better than making a name for ourselves, he’s written our names in his book, not because we have a great job, but because we’re his children.

So work really hard. Do amazingly good work. Excel in every single way that you can, in every single area that you can, with the self-forgetful happiness that can be found only when you’ve laid yourself down and are trusting in the name of a tireless, serving Savior. Trust the author of the Lamb’s book of life to guide you in every circumstance to every good work that he’s prepared for you.

Read the whole thing.

The Bible always has a newness to it. Even the most familiar passages are new when they are received by people who are continually being transformed, because we’re never the same when we come to them.

When I read a passage as an 18 year old, it has an effect. And it’s effect is entirely new when it lands on the different person that I was at 20, 25, 30 years old. I’ve read the Bible so many times, but I never read it as the same person. Every time there are differences and changes in me–in my circumstance and the transformation God’s working–and every time there are new beauties that I couldn’t see yesterday.

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:44-49 ESV)

“We shall bear the image of the man of heaven.” It’s as though I’v never read it before. There is so much discussion about being made in God’s image. It’s good and sometimes helpful. Yet, that image was so horrifically broken by sin that in a very real sense, our image bearing was made untrue by sin without Christ. In sin, we bear the image of the man of dust. But for those in the incorruptible Christ, we bear the image of One who will never tarnish.

Here’s an excerpt of a new post up at Desiring God. By way of preface, I’ll say that this is not an easy topic for me to write about–because there is so much room for misunderstanding. C.S. Lewis advises that writers should try to close all the possible wrong gates that readers could take and say precisely what they mean to (or something like that). I don’t think I’ve ever written something to that standard. And this is just another attempt. The beauties of the Bible, of God’s works and ways are too wonderful not to write about–even when the attempts fall short.

A package came in the mail with the warning “FRAGILE: Handle with Care.” We fastidiously cut open the cardboard and were disappointed to find a few broken pieces inside. If only the fast-moving conveyor belts and jostling trucks could have read this helpful label. Then they’d have known to give it its proper consideration and value.

A glass chandelier is exquisite in its fragility. We could replace it with a wood frame, sturdy and functional, which would have a certain virtue to it, but it would lose all the things that make it what it is: the light that twinkles off the multi-faceted glass, the gentle high chinkling of pieces as they’re nudged, the suspended refinement that underscores a necessary sort of civilization. It would be a mistake to deem a chandelier worthless because it’s fragile. It misses the point.

Fragility isn’t a defect; it may be the defining worth of a thing.

We have a parallel in 1 Peter 3. How is it that God calls women to “do good and do not fear anything that is frightening” in one verse (1 Peter 3:6), and in the next verse refers to them as a “weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7)? We don’t often put fearless and weaker together.

What results from physical fragility? Should fragile things feel insulted because we acknowledge they’re breakable? Or could their very nature as weaker lead them to the source of their fearlessness? A powerlessness resulting in trust in the all-powerful Father?

It helps to first acknowledge that what God says through Peter is true. We areweaker, or we could use the synonym fragile. Not stupider. Not less human. Not incapable of reason or achievement. Not emotionally broken. Not more sinful. And not even without great strength, as the Scriptures testify. But weaker. And yet many of us are, or have been at some point, uncomfortable with this because it’s inimical to the spirit of the age and it feels like an offense to our pride. So much so that we may stubbornly spurn 1 Peter’s verity, even as we take every precaution when walking alone in a dark alley.

Our weakness — the fact that no matter how much time I spent in the gym, I’d likely never be able to overpower an average-sized man or beat him in an arm-wrestling match — is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is to be handled with care, because in it resides exquisite beauties, abilities, and feminine strengths — like the beautiful strength of thick beveled glass.

A pregnant woman is one of the most defenseless humans on the face of the earth. She can barely rise to her feet after sinking into a comfy couch. Yet, who but the weaker vessel, called woman, can grow another human inside her body?

Think of the massive strength and endurance it takes to give birth — yet it is simultaneously a vulnerable type of vigor. A woman in a marathon labor of countless hours is then sitting up in bed, even as her body begins to hemorrhage, trying to feed and care for another person. Why did God do it this way? So that we would know that, like a mother with her nursing babe, he never forgets us, even as the blood drained out of his own Son on our behalf. It’s a fragile, mind-bogglingly valiant design pointing to bigger things, to be honored and protected, not belittled by comparison with a man, but accurately understood by it.

Read the rest.