You may remember a story I told earlier about a student who was afraid to share her career ambitions because she thought I would disparage her choice. She wanted to be a wife, mother and home maker!
In a world that is questioning the importance of, or openly attacking the traditional nuclear family, it is not hard to understand how this young lady could have thought that her desire to spend her life in this way would be looked down upon in our modern society.
When children are asked what they want to be when they grow up, they will answer based on the limited knowledge they have and most will be thinking of themselves and the benefits their “career choices” will bring to them.
Prepubescent children are too young to understand the gravity of this question, not having the capacity to understand who God is, what His character is like, what He expects of “grown-ups” and how temporal things may not advance eternal outcomes.
Adults making decisions based on feelings while failing to take God into consideration, also unfortunately, end up thinking and acting like children. Feelings require no knowledge or understanding, so it is much easier to go by feeling than thought. This is something that manipulators clearly understand, but I digress.
What does “God is love” mean? Does it mean that God has a responsibility to love, or is obligated to be consistent in His application of love, perhaps implying that we don’t? How does God’s love manifest itself in our lives?
Sure, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son”, but “greater love has no one than laying down his life for his friends.” Both instruct us in what love is.
Jesus taught us that love was the voluntary giving of oneself. He personally demonstrated His great love by giving us His very life that we might have eternal life through Him. Our faith in His action is best summarized by an often quoted cliché of “love is not love until you give it away,” which brings us back to our original story.
The young lady I mentioned was concerned that her decision of how she was going to spend her life would be scorned by others.
I want to emphasize the fact that she wanted to “spend her life” being a wife, mother and homemaker. What exactly does “spend her or our life,” mean? We may state this, but do we clearly comprehend what we are saying? Let me help with that.
Suppose God gave you forty million dollars, with the stipulation that you spend it any way you want by a specified time. How would you spend it? How much of this money would you spend helping others? How much on yourself?
Considering that the money is actually God’s and knowing that His measure of right doing is in keeping with the fact that He is the personification of Love, how would you accomplish this task?
In a way, God has given you forty million! Consider that there are 60 minutes in every hour, each day has 1440 minutes and each year has nearly 526,000 minutes, 525,960 to be exact. Assuming that you will live until you are 76 years of age (an arbitrary assumption), you have about forty million minutes at your disposal.
How are you going to spend this forty million? Like money, your life is finite. Like money, no matter how you spend your life, you are indeed “spending” it. Like money, you have been given a limited amount that will eventually run out. Like money, you spend it, until it is gone.
Considering these things, how will you spend yours?
Using love as our measure of Godliness, what do you think will bring the greatest fulfillment to your life, spending it on yourself or on others? Would spending it on immediate self-gratification be as fulfilling as investing it towards the future?
Put another way, what do you think you will be able to bring to heaven? Money? Fame? Prestige? Title? How about a life-long career of advancing yourself ahead of others? No! No! No!
The only thing we can possibly bring with us and even then it depends on the decisions of others, are those people we have influenced in some way to accept the way, the truth and the life.
Is there a better way to do that than in serving others? Is there anything more important than doing this within a family?
Our young lady had chosen to give her life away, to spend it as a loving wife, mother and faithful homemaker, rather than by having another career.
Spending one’s life with an eye to eternity as it affects not just ourselves, but generations to come, is to have God’s own heart beating within us.
The very best post-secondary option for any person is to aspire to do what God has created them to do. For young ladies, that likely includes wanting to spend your life being a wife, mother and homemaker. There is no higher calling and there are no academic levels or prerequisite courses required. At least, not yet!