Are We Meant For Greatness?
Can you point out the lies this woman is believing?
“Our purpose is to love God and lead others to him. My mother has worked hard her whole life along with my dad. They are the most godly people I know, and seeing my mother work and my dad encourage her in her career has benefited me much more than her staying home ever would. It has taught me to work hard and strive for the passions God has given me!
“To tell young girls their only role is to stay home, have children, and love their husbands just simply isn’t biblical! Have you ever read the book of Esther? Jesus empowered women! Take a look at Christine Caine! We were meant for greatness and were meant to work hard and use the amazing gifts God has blessed us with to advance his kingdom.
“Some women might choose to stay home, while others decide to be in politics, military, finance, or even farming! Proverbs 31:16 says ‘She considers a field and buys it, with the fruit of her hands, and she plants a vineyard.’ She has earned her own money and then buys land and plants! She is legit a farmer! Women can work hard towards an education and career if that is a desire God has given them, and it be totally biblical! My mom has taught me what hard work and dedication looks like and I will never take that for granted!”
I am given comments like this frequently and have responded to them numerous times but this time, I thought I would go to the wise women in the chat room and see how they would respond to her!
Judy: “How would she be taught what hard work looks like if her mother was away from her most of her working hours? Is a woman only ‘using her gifts’ earning money from someone else? What about her God given gifts of nurturing and training her children? How about the character formation of her children? Who does that? I would like my children to say more from my legacy to them than that I worked for someone else and made that employer successful.”
Janie: “Many of it comes from what she stated; they are looking for greatness and placing their value on what they can accomplish here on this earth.”
Judy: “Women are VERY empowered to be entrusted with the character training and raising of the next generation!”
Theresa: “She is placing her will above God’s. She is believing a lie that what she wants is more important than what God wants. She is looking for justification to do what she wants.”
Meredith: “I wonder how what she’s espousing meshes with Jesus’ instruction to live sacrificial lives for others.”
Judy: “She says her mother and father are some of the ‘most godly people that she knows.’ How do you define godly? Is it godly, if you have the choice, to leave your children in the care of someone else, so you can have more money and be fulfilled? Is it godly for a father/husband to ‘encourage’ this? Godly is as godly does!”
Christine: “Where in the Bible does it say to leave your husband, children, and home to go and ‘work hard’?”
Carlee: “When I was student teaching, my supervisor who was an older lady came to meet me for the first time. She didn’t even look at my plans, but instead berated me for not insisting to my husband that we move somewhere else for a good job and for me wanting to stay home when I had my son (I was pregnant at the time). She said, ‘You need to work so your children can learn that women can WORK! Especially in a field like mathematics!! You HAVE to be that example for them!’
“I was so dumbfounded. My children can know that I’m good at math and capable of getting a job teaching math if I wanted, just by me saying so. It’s really not that hard. Also, I can teach them the value of hard work by staying home and working hard around my house. My mom working taught me nothing except wishing she would have more time and energy for me after she spent it all on her students. This is NOT what I want my kids to learn, honestly.”
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
1 Corinthians 3:19
14 thoughts on “Are We Meant For Greatness?”
Women are meant for greatness. Just in different ways than men! The problem is society defines greatness as being like a man, having a career etc… Womanhood is devalued and denigrated as domestic servitude and slavery, and motherhood a curse than a blessing! Sad a generation of women were taught there are worth nothing until they can imitate men!
“To tell young girls their only role is to stay home, have children, and love their husbands just simply isn’t biblical!”
It sounds like this woman has never read the Bible {e.g., I Timothy 5:14; Titus 2:3-5}. Any marriage in which the husband is encouraging the wife in her career is backward and not Scripturally structured. I hate to see men following their wives around when the wives are transferred to a new location because of their employer.
Also, just what is wrong with a wife helping to make her husband successful, or more successful {per the Joshua 1:8 definition of that term}? My husband is the only man I want to help succeed! 🙂
None of those comments surprise me a bit. Nowadays, I see people twisting the words to accommodate just about anything they want to do and say, “God says it’s okay.” And, if you should disagree, they’ll go to “it’s a translation. We don’t know FOR SURE.”
The bottom line is that they want to do what they want to do.
I’d like to know where the Bible says Esther or the Proverbs 31 woman left their God given responsibility (children) to others.
Yes, I believe we are. There is no greater greatness than knowing that the God who created both heaven and earth and everything in it, on it and below it, loves us so much that he came as a baby to subsequently die a dreadful death, just to redeem us to Himself so we can have an eternity with Him.
Any greatness we achieve here on earth is done in Him and not by our self – it is all because of Jesus and the amazing greatness that He has.
The Bible tells us that it is in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28); we can’t even breath unless He gives us the next breath.
The greatest part of the lives we live everyday is to love Him, serve Him, worship Him and show a dying world His love; to me that is true greatness. That God would count me worthy to show the world His love and nature is amazing! What a wonderful promise and gift He has given us as His children bought with a great price!
Yes, I believe we are made for greatness as long as it is found in Him and NOT in the things of this world or the world system.
I also think that bring up the next generation for God’s Glory; is an act of Greatness as is being a Godly wife!
I praise God He called me to do both – I love, love, love my chosen career and it has the best retirement plan!
Love to you and yours Lori!!???
That’s correct.
Well said.
God “created them male and female.” God is genuinely good and can’t do evil. He created man and woman, therefore He loves them both the same which means that the role He gave to each gender is perfect and perfectly matched for them.
My wife wasted 6 years of her life in college pursuing a master’s degree in chemical engineering so she could have a career. Luckily, she found God a year after she finished (she was raised Jewish) and we got married shortly after. I am so grateful to have her in my life. It’s been a struggle of faith for us raising 4 kids on my meager social worker’s salary when we know she could bring in more money, but it has strengthened our faith and our relationship with each other and with God.
Thank you for your blog. I enjoy reading your insightful posts.
I’m not one to sugar-coat the principles in scripture –for His principles are true freedom and peace– but I just don’t see that woman are to be glorified as a group in the ‘greatness’ that so many women seek.
Men glorify God and women glorify men as is clearly stated in 1 Corinthians 11:7 “For a man … is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.” There is notably no glory paid to the woman.
However, there is incredible importance and deep heartwarming in the role of women, for in glorifying the man, the woman thus enables the man to better glorify God, and thus His people, as a whole, glorify Him in a greater fullness.
Most certainly there are individual women in Scripture that received individual honor, but women do not receive ‘glory’ as a class; that is man-made fable of the church.
Here is one man’s perspective: Most men I know do not go to a job site to seek or achieve “greatness.” They go, work hard, get dirty, try to solve stressful problems, and come home weary. The only reward they get is a paycheck and an occasional “thanks” from their employer. They do this primarily out of duty and love for their family. Wives who enter the world of work outside the home and hope to achieve “greatness” are likely to be disappointed.
Hi I am new here and have a lot of questions. I fell for a lot of the lies of feminist culture and am still needing a lot of help. I am so lost and confused and looking for help and answers 🙁
Yes, absolutely! Bringing up kids is the greatest thing you can do
Thank you for saying GOD loves them both the same. Often times when people talk about the roles of men and women, and the differences, they can make it seem as though women are worth less. And not as important for GOD’s Kingdom or His plans. And sometimes even as though GOD loves men more, so thank you for your comment.