Thinking on Scripture: First Timothy 3:1-7

Note: I wrote this Friday and modified it a bit as I typed it.

I started out this afternoon searching for answers in God's Word. I didn't know where to even start looking but ended up in First Timothy chapter three, the section focusing on the elders / overseers.

One of Jason's comments this morning while we were fighting (yes, again) was that I was holding us back from what God wanted us to do and be. Later he called to say he felt like we (our marriage) was being attacked. (Marriages in our circle of friends and neighbors are all falling apart and being attacked; it is so sad.) I agree with him on both points, but it's not easy to say that. It means I'm wrong and I hate to be wrong - in word or deed. That being said, there are things that my husband is working on too.

In reading First Timothy 3:1-7, I found things that Jason needs to work on to be such a person in our church. (I don't know if that is what God has in store for us or not, I'm just thinking out loud. If an overseer needs to have such values and things in his life, why can't those extend to any Christian person; they are all good and right things.) I also found things Jason does really well. However, verse four jumped out at me:

One who manages will his own house,
having his children in subjection with all gravity.

Jason and I are supposed to be a team. he's doing as well as he can; he's learning and growing and developing into a more Christ-like individual, husband and father. He is becoming a man after God's own heart. He is trying to manage his house well. I am not. I am holding us both back. I am defeating him at almost every turn. I don't know why. It's like Paul says in Romans 7:

For I do not do the good which I will; but the evil which I do not will, this I practice. But if what I do not will, this I do, it is no longer I that work it out but sin that dwells in me. I find then the law with me who wills to do the good, that is, the evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, But I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?

I'm done with holding us back. If God wants my husband to be a leader in His body of believers or elsewhere in the community, then I want to help him in anyway that I can. If that is as simple as managing our home and children, I can do that. I already possess the skills. I can do what needs to be done - train our children to be "in subjection" and to educate them with the skills that they need to add to society; I can have our home, create our home, to be a welcoming place without clutter and mess everywhere. Right now, our home isn't such a place.

If I want my man to be the man God wants him to be, then I need to be the wife and mother that God is calling me to be. Does J's success depend on me? Can he be that man without me? Maybe. Probably. But as his help meet, created to help him and be his partner, I bet he can get there faster, if I do my job.

Just my thoughts.


Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

The Bible version used in this post is the Recovery Version.