Imagine yourself walking through the door of your home at the end of the day.
Everything is immaculate. The house has been cleaned, everything is put away where it belongs. Your diffuser is misting with your favorite blend. Dinner is just about ready, dessert has been prepared. Your husband greets you with a smile, a hug, and a kiss.
As you make your way into your bedroom, you notice the bed is made, the laundry has been washed and put away, and the bathroom is sparkling. Your bathrobe and comfy clothes are laid on the bed for you, along with a little love note from your husband.
You make your way to the kitchen to join your family and find fresh flowers on the table, and your husband pouring you a glass of your favorite beverage. You enjoy a delicious dinner and dessert, then your husband clears your space and makes sure the dishes get done and the kitchen cleaned up.
He draws you a bath with some Stress Away bath bombs, hands you a glass of wine, and gets your towel and bathrobe ready for you. During your bath, he gets the kids ready for bed and brings them in to say good night.
After your bath, he asks you to choose what to watch on TV so the two of you can snuggle on the couch for a while before bed.
At bedtime, he fills up the diffuser with your favorite sleepy blend, then spends a few minutes giving you an incredible foot rub before you both get under the covers and he turns off the lights.
How does this make you feel as you drift off to sleep? Do you feel loved, cared for, appreciated, adored?
What if he didn’t do all of these things every single day, but maybe just one or two. Would that still be pretty awesome?
Let’s turn this around and consider what things we do for our husbands when they come home from work.
- Do we have the house clean for them?
- Do we prepare dinners we know they’ll love?
- Do we add beauty to our homes in the form of flowers or delicious diffuser recipes misting when they arrive?
- Do we pour them a beverage, clear their space after dinner, and make sure everything gets cleaned up?
- Do we let them relax after dinner, choose what to watch on TV, and get everything prepared for bed?
- Do we offer to rub their feet or their shoulders?
All too often, I hear women talk about how outdated the advice is to have dinner ready for your husband, or clean the house for him, or bring him a drink, or give him a massage. It’s the “Stepford Wife” persona that our society seems to think makes women look like slaves rather than spouses.
But let me ask you…if your husband did all of those things for you, would you view him as your slave, or would you simply feel appreciated, cherished, and treasured?
Philippians 2:4 in the ESV version tells us, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Notice it says look “not only” to your own interests. You are still expected to look to your own interests. But it can’t be ALL about you.
I don’t personally believe it’s realistic to expect to serve your husband in this manner every single night, doing all the things. You’d get burnt out and exhausted - or at least I would! 😄 It’s simply not sustainable.
What I do believe is that we can take some of those things and try to do as many of them as we can each day. Maybe one night we have an incredibly special home-cooked meal and dessert ready for him. The next night we cater to him by having his beverage ready and drawing him a bath. The night after, we give him an opportunity to relax after work by taking care of the kids, putting them to bed, and letting him take over the TV.
When we think of Christ, we think of Him as the Son of God, full of love and power and wisdom and authority. Yet, He tells us in Mark 10, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve...”
If the One we claim as Lord and Savior considers Himself a servant, how much more should we find honor in serving those we love, especially the one with whom we are one flesh?
What are some of the ways you welcome your husband home and serve him at the end of the day?
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Picture this: Christmas morning, you wake up, make a cup of coffee (or tea), and everyone gathers around the tree to open up gifts.
You're SO excited, because you wrapped up the PERFECT gift for your kid. They've been begging you for this over and over again, sometimes with tears in their eyes, for MONTHS.
As the pile of presents grows smaller and smaller with each gift opened, you see that shiny, beautifully wrapped, ribbon-laden box with the tag that has your child's name on it.
They reach for it, and you hold your breath as they tear off the paper and open the lid to see what's inside.
Overwhelming joy rushes out of them as they thank you and hug you and thank you some more. You can't help but feel like Best Mom In the Universe!
The next day, you notice the box is still there, with the gift still inside. A week later, it hasn't been touched or moved.
A month later, your kid comes to you with tears, begging for this one gift again. You remind them that you've already given it to them, and their response is, "But...I keep forgetting it's there, and when I remember, the instructions just seem too difficult!"
And this amazing gift sits unused, because your child has made the choice to not take hold of it.
This, my sweet friend, is what we often do with Jesus' gift of PEACE.
In John 14:27, Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."
We beg Him for it, with tears in our eyes. He hands it to us in a shiny package called the Bible, wrapped in the Holy Spirit, and we leave it to sit unused.
Does that sound familiar to you, even just a little bit?
Yes, His peace comes with instructions, but they are clearly laid out for us and simple to follow.
Not easy - sometimes it's much easier to NOT follow them. Which is probably why we make the choice to ignore them, and then His peace sits unused yet again. But friend, that is OUR choice. God isn't taking that gift back, or hiding it from us. It's sitting right where we left it; we're just making the choice to ignore it and His instructions.
If you struggle with feelings of depression, anxiety, fear, worry, helplessness, hopelessness, or anything like those, please know that Jesus has already given you His peace. It is YOURS. It cannot be taken away from you. You can choose to ignore it, or you can choose to read the instructions and learn how to use it. But the gift is YOURS and the choice is YOURS.
I would be honored to talk more about this with you and pray with you. Please feel free to reach out to me at missiannsmith@gmail.com anytime!
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Philippians 4:4-7 tells us:
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness[a] be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Let's walk through this for a moment.
The first thing Paul tells us to do is REJOICE. Why do you think that is? Not only rejoice, but rejoice in the Lord, and to do so always.
As much as we'd like to think we're great multitaskers, the truth is that we can really only focus on one thing at a time. If we're busy focusing on rejoicing in the Lord, we don't have the mental capacity to pay attention to our fears, worries, phobias, and problems.
Paul goes on to say that we are to make our requests known, through prayer and with thanksgiving.
Not only are we supposed to rejoice, always, in the Lord, but when we request things of God as we're instructed, we're supposed to also do this with thanksgiving.
So first we make sure that we're rejoicing in the Lord. What does that mean? We rejoice simply in Who God is. He is the Almighty who loves us unconditionally. Who sees every terrible thing we've done, and instead of shunning us for eternity, sent His son to take our place because despite those awful things, He still wanted to keep us forever! Sometimes that's hard to comprehend - especially when we think about the people around us who have done terrible things. Sometimes we'd much rather shun them - but not God.
We can rejoice that God is:
- All powerful
- Loving
- Gracious
- Merciful
- Kind
- Just
- Wise
- Considerate
Plus a host of other wonderful and amazing things!
As we rejoice in all that God is, we are also supposed to come to Him with our requests. This doesn't mean only the prayer requests of those around us; God truly wants you to speak about what's on your own heart. Sure, He already knows - but He wants you to ask Him. It's the simple act of asking Him that creates the relationship He wants with us. There's no relationship there if we simply expect Him to just do everything He knows we want, without ever expressing ourselves to Him. Relationships involve communication.
God not only invites us to request things of Him, but He is instructing us to do so!
We are to make these requests through prayer, and supplication with thanksgiving.
What in the world does that mean?
He doesn't want us to simply lay out a Christmas list of desires. He wants us to be grateful for the things that we have. What's the point in giving us more if we don't appreciate what He's already given us?
Sometimes this can be difficult - but look at what Paul says will happen if we do this: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
WOW! This is the type of peace that we can't even wrap our minds around. Have you ever experienced that? Where you just felt so peaceful and you simply couldn't explain it?
Friend, do you want that kind of peace to wash over your heart and flood your mind? The peace that drowns out all of your worries, makes all of your fears obsolete, and cures every phobia?
The instructions are simple: rejoice in the Lord always, make your requests known to Him through prayer and with thanksgiving. Perhaps not the easiest of instructions, but they are simple.
Here is my challenge to you today: spend a few moments writing down the attributes of God that you can rejoice over. Write down as many as you can think of - feel free to Google some if you need reminders. Put this list up where you can see it and refer to it everyday.
Then write out your requests for God - next to each request, include a reason to be thankful. Ask Him for more of His peace to reign in your heart and mind. He's promised it to you; it's okay to thank Him in advance for it as well as part of your thanksgiving.
I'd love to hear from you. What are some of your favorite attributes of God?
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