Give

12.09.11

1 Timothy 5.14 14 So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. NIV

There is nothing better in this world than to have something of value and worth to focus on. Now in saying that, I don’t want to imply that just any old thing is worthy just because it is our focus. But in the passage in 1 Timothy 5, Paul was trying to help Timothy to help younger women who for some reason had become widows and had perhaps lost their momentum in life. A ship adrift on the open sea is at the mercy of the sea and all that’s a part of it. For Paul to counsel younger widows to marry, have children, and manage their homes shows me that Paul understood the necessity of focus in the lives of people. Some direction is better than no direction at all.

The three things the younger (remarried) widow was to focus on were: her husband, her children, and her household. If that don’t keep ya occupied, I don’t know what else will.

First, a husband can be a handful at times. He is a separate person with desires and dreams of his own. Typically he works outside the home and is exposed to all sorts of people and situations while he is away from home. And then when he comes home he brings a lot of the baggage home with him that he’s picked up during the work day.

Second, children can also be a load with their sibling rivalries and just the fact that children as well have their own perspective and need to be taught how to interact with their world and all that they face – a learning and maturing thing.

And third, then throw on the task of managing a household – watching where the money is spent, preparing meals, taking care of the home routine – those in themselves can be very daunting and time-consuming.

But the biggest thing is that a believing wife-mother-manager must also keep her spiritual focus as well; she can ill-afford to lose sight of what’s really important while she’s busy spinning the plates of all that she has to handle in her everyday occupation. It’s no wonder Paul called the younger widow to keep the important things first and to try to maintain balance in all she did.

As I read this the word that popped into my mind was: Give. If the danger of idleness was a problem for younger widows (Cf. 1Timothy 5.11-13) then the solution was to give herself away in the proper focus: marriage, children, and home.

But isn’t it important for all of us to give ourselves away in some way in our everyday lives? The principal applies to all of us in one way or another. Jesus said, It’s more blessed to give than to receive. And all of us (at least those of us in God’s care) have something worthwhile to contribute into the lives of other people. The focus has to remain God and then the action is to give Him away through our interactions with others: in relationships, in the occupation, and in the home.