For many years I have found this proverb very sobering ... and helpful. I ask myself “what am I doing to my home¹ , building it up or tearing it down?” I could be questioning my words to my husband or children at the time, or it could be the activity I am undertaking. I could be reflecting on the day’s work; constructive or destructive? What am I doing with the days God has given me? Am I being a wise woman with this pre­cious time and this excellent, God-hon­ouring task of building a home?

As I write that I feel palpable panic! How many of us can answer that with a resounding “yes!”? I feel urgency. I would that all wives, mothers, homemakers could be asked to write this article for themselves so they would be impacted and challenged as I have been. But I am writing it. Praise and thanks be to God for his goodness. Now, if I can only just convey to you such a feeling of impor­tance, urgency, and encouragement...

It is not my intention to outline long lists of methods for organising your house and life. I will give a small amount of practical guidance. For the rest, I suggest you ask an older woman who has had many years of practise. This, after all, is their explicit God-given role. Please don’t be afraid to ask for help. Why would God in his perfect fatherly wisdom spe­cifically require that the “older women train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-con­trolled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands” (Titus 2:4) if he wanted the younger women just to learn all this for themselves in isolation?

More important to begin with than step-by-step cleaning schedules is surely our attitude towards the time we have. The focus of this article will therefore be on managing our time to build our home with prayerfulness, thankfulness, and diligence.

Prayerfulness⤒🔗

Martha, Martha, (...) you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.Luke 10:41-42

I have a war between my Martha and my Mary. My Martha has all the big guns after years of being bolstered. When my Martha tells my Mary to get in the kitchen my Mary does it automati­cally and fearfully lest there’s an escala­tion. In fact, when my Mary is managing to have some time at the Lord’s feet there are constant shots being fired by my Martha from every corner of the house, interrupting every sentence read and prayer uttered. I’ve got to get my Martha subdued because my Mary is the one who needs to be in control.

Elizabeth George² puts it this way: Mary discerned the one thing needed and chose the one thing needed.

(Mary) had learned that nothing can take the place of time in God’s presence. Indeed, time spent sitting at His feet fuels and focuses all acts of service. And, as her Master noted, time spent hearing and worshipping God can never be taken away, for it is time spent in eternal pur­suits, time that earns permanent and ev­erlasting dividends.

Mary had her priorities right. Her first priority was the Lord, and he is our first priority. Time spent in prayer and meditation over God’s Word is our only sure source of strength and encourage­ment for each day. We too often consider this time negotiable as the more pressing voices and tasks overcome our resolve. But it is NOT NEGOTIABLE (!), FOR ANYONE (!), let alone us who are tasked with precious bodies and minds to nurture. By ignoring the call to daily prayer and meditation we make our­selves like trees planted in the desert. We are supposed to give shade and fruit to those who need it but we are with­ered and non-yielding with barely the energy to stay alive. But what a won­drous image in the very first Psalm of he (she!) who meditates on God’s law day and night: “He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.” (Psalm 1:3). All my exclamation marks and feeble explanations can add nothing to the Word of Almighty God who says “if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.” (John 7:37b).

So let’s take some steps. First of all, since we’ve already begun talking about priorities let’s make the important step of defining them for a homemaker. Eliz­abeth George is helpful here again: defining our priorities according to God’s Word guides us,

when the tyranny of the urgent beats on my door, trying to shove aside the very few really impor­tant tasks in my life – my grand duties and my chief works of:

• Loving God and following after Him with a whole heart;
• Loving, helping, and serving my husband;
• Loving, teaching, and disciplining my (children);
• Loving and caring for a home in order to provide a quality life for my family;
• Developing myself so that I have some­thing to give to others; and
• Loving and serving God’s people.

Practicing these priorities calls us to wear many hats, and we must wear all of them – but we can only wear one at a time! Knowing what your priorities are – and choosing to wear the right hat at the right time – keeps you fully focussed on the most important thing at hand at any given minute.³

Whether you agree with the above list on first reading or not I would encourage you to prayerfully consider what God’s priorities are for you and once that is done to pray each day for God’s guid­ance for each of these priorities and the plans you have made. We can conduct ourselves in such an independent way that we forget that “in his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). Our at­titude of prayerfulness doesn’t end with our “planning prayer”; it is to continue throughout the day with thankfulness: “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6).

Thankfulness←⤒🔗

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.Colossians 3:17

Thankfulness is an amazing tool, an incredible weapon against time-wasting. Thankfulness allows us to commune with God throughout the day as we acknowledge him as the giver of all things for our good. As we go about the sometimes mundane, sometimes downright trying days of being a homemaker, thankfulness creates contentment: contentment that we can have such an excellent oppor­tunity to serve others in such a clear-cut and practical way. Rachel Jankovic writes of the “discipleship of the mundane”:

Christian women who seek to honour God as they work through the mundane, repetitive tasks that are given to them will be used for bigger things. We will not be mothers of little children forever. Lord willing, our work will grow with our children. Our challenges will change. Be a faithful student. God is not training you for no reason. Practice. Practice. Practice. But Practice with thanksgiving. Practice with joy. Practice with gratitude. Practice with hope.⁴

Ann Voskamp eloquently describes the effect of thankfulness:

I am a mother-tired, but when my soul doth magnify, my time doth magnify ... I redeem time from neglect and apathy and inattentiveness when I swell with thanks and weigh the moment down and it’s giving thanks to God for this moment that multiplies the moments, time made enough.⁵

As we go through our day, thankful­ness can be a useful test. We can be thankful for time spent with a friend, being able to cook good food for our family, a cup of tea after the housework, a walk in the sunshine, all things which fit into our priorities. But what about that romance novel that makes us feel discontented with our husband? Or that television series that we can’t miss even though it means the children’s lunches are never made the night before and there is always a flustered mum in the morning trying to get them done? Can we be thankful to God for these moments? As we walk in the full knowledge of the omnipresence and omniscience of God it becomes very clear what are not his gifts, but are instead a skulking into worldliness and sinfulness on our part. We must be diligent to weed out soul-sapping “time bandits.”⁶

Diligence←⤒🔗

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.Galatians 6:7-9

This is another very sobering verse, a verse that calls us to diligence, to make sure the seeds we are sowing are pleas­ing to God. How can we be diligent with the time we have as a homemaker? By being in the now, and by being vigilant about activities that steal our day from us.

“Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”⁷ Do you believe your job as a homemaker is the will of God for you? Then be all there and live it to the hilt. Serve the Lord, serve your husband, serve your children, make your home, better yourself, minister to others with conscious passion and com­mitment. Edith Schaeffer tells us “it is important to consider – as your children play, fight, or squabble, and you sigh, wish for ten years to pass, look at the clock and wish it was night, or lie in bed wishing the day to pass because you have the flu – (...) the danger to wasting the “now”, or of considering that everything is going to be static, with no future!”⁸ She goes on to outline what she would tell her children, and we would do well to pay attention for both ourselves and our offspring: “Don’t waste this hour. Don’t waste today. Stop fighting for a minute and just think! You are getting older every day, and you won’t be four, with an eight-year-old sister and a tiny baby sister for very long. Think hard – what can you do now in this combina­tion that you can’t do in ten years, in five years, even next year? Then do it!”⁹ What can you do now? What should you do now that you won’t be able to do in the future? What are you doing now that you know you will want to undo in the future!?

What is stopping us from living our situation to the hilt? The “time bandits”, as Elizabeth George calls them: procras­tination, general laziness, poor plan­ning and scheduling, poor delegation, poor use of media (internet, telephone, television, books, magazines, newspa­pers), priorities out of whack.¹⁰ We all claim to be busy, but “busyness is not an indicator of effectiveness. If you and I are busy doing the wrong things, then we are being robbed of time that could be better spent on the things that truly count – our God-given priorities.”¹¹ We need to be vigilant about each day, each moment, and enjoy them with thankfulness. Don’t let those things that appear urgent overrule those things you have prayerfully set apart in your heart and mind as the most important. For example, don’t let the telephone inter­rupt your special time with your child. You can still be all things to all people, but obviously not all at the same time. It is okay to let them leave a message and call them back later.

Build Your House←⤒🔗

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.Proverbs 14:1

Considering this proverb again, maybe we now have a framework of time-man­agement attitudes with which to build our home. We lay our plans before the Lord for each day, asking him to guide our paths. We continue by giving thanks to the Lord throughout the day for his good gifts, allowing us to assess what his best for us is at any time. We diligently remove the activities that we know are not his will and replace them with solid actions of service and love to him, our family, and others. And we are “all there” when it comes to loving and living each moment he gives us carrying out his will in our life.