At this point, I need to interject an important truth. We do not always get to do exactly what we want to do. Of course, we simply do not. Have you ever read something or heard a sermon about faithful attendance to all the worship services and then left that article or sermon feeling discouraged because you are having to take care of a very sick parent or because you are having to work an extra job while your spouse is suffering from cancer or because your own immune system is low ( or because of one of a thousand other things that’s been making you absent yourself from your favorite activity in the whole world)? After all, the sermon or lesson called for repentance and you just can’t even fix the problem right now. That’s discouraging.
I have a friend who is a faithful single mom. She understands that her situation is not the one God would have planned for her and her work schedule has been keeping her from being at the services of the church consistently. She has elicited the prayers of faithful Christian sisters as she strives to get to a point where her hours are more conducive to being there each time. She’s had us praying for specific job interviews and, at last, she has been given the job that will allow her to be at every service. Now, where was her heart all along? Was she living faithfully? Of course, she was. And God is blessing her.
Do you know what the key is to whether or not you should repent of being absent from the assemblies? Of course you do. It is your heart. it lies in whether or not you have chosen to be absent. it lies in where you WANTED to be,
The heart is the key. The greatest command will always be about the heart (Luke 10:25-28). It’s what you are choosing there. It’s what’s the priority there. It’s what you are doing IF you get to do exactly what you WANT to do.
Let me just emphasize that the same is true of our word oikouros. Yes, it is an injunction from the Holy Spirit for older women to be teaching younger women to do this. It’s in a list of imperatives that keep the Word from being blasphemed by those around us. It is important.
But every woman reading knows exactly where her heart is about oikouros. Some women, because of medical emergencies, loss of a husband’s job, sin in the past of which they are fully penitent, or a thousand other factors, may go through seasons of being absolutely unable to fully be the “worker at home” that they really want to be. But it’s about the heart. It’s about the priority there. It’s about what I am choosing. It’s about what I want for my home and family. It’s about what, given the chance, I will choose.
And, of/for those sisters, who are, at least for a time, not getting to do what they deeply wish they could be doing, we should be supportive, encouraging, prayerful, resourceful and, yes, we should be helpful. The Golden Rule goes a long, long way in helping those who are desperately wanting to be oikouros.
One more illustration. I have a dear friend who has failed this week. This week she has not even cooked for her dear husband. She has not done laundry or cleaned up her house and it’s a wreck. She has not sent out her regular cards to weak members or kept up with her prayer group. If oikouros had a grading or merit system base on achievement, she has certainly failed this week.
But her house was hit by that obliterating tornado in Jacksonville, Alabama last week. That factor makes all the difference. See, we don’t go to her right now to chastise her for the fact that all of the main things in her world are undone. We go and help her do the best she can with what’s on her plate at the moment. Because it’s all about the heart. It’s about the “want-to.” What does she want to do right now with all her heart? Because of the answer to that question, we know she is succeeding rather than failing.
Because of my conscience about what is happening on a large scale to children in our culture…(that is, parents are choosing to relinquish their care and training to others), I will keep saying, with all of my small influence, the importance of oikouros, in conjunction with all the remaining and equally important characteristics of Titus 2:3-5. But may all of us constantly remember, that from the heart flow the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). And may we pray for the changes that a pure heart desires. May we love, encourage with our words, support, and pray in behalf of sisters who are not getting to do what they really want to do.
‘
