Let’s do a little experiment today, shall we?! I’m going to say something that’s apparently heretical, unbiblical, calling into question my obedience to God and love for my husband, and we’re going to see if God smites me right here, right now.
Ready?!
I’ve been working outside the walls of my home for almost two months now, and it is GLORIOUS. I love my secular workplace! I enjoy being with my co-workers who have very different lives and beliefs than I. I appreciate working closely with both men and women. I have been cared for better than any church I’ve belonged to, and I’ve witnessed people who don’t identity as “Christian” show more Christ-like love than most self-proclaimed Christians.
I’ve been working in a secular environment for six weeks, and I look more like Jesus.
pause for effect
check my heart rate
look around to triple check
Still here!
Still deeply in love with God.
Still deeply in love with my husband.
And get this – I still believe me working outside the home is God-ordained, God blessed, part of God’s larger plan for my life, and making me more holy, more like Jesus.
Around the time I sent out my first serious job application last fall, I noticed the “trad wife” trope infiltrating a few areas of my life, insisting that to leave the house would mean the demise of my faith, my salvation, and my marriage.
You know the trope – “a woman’s place is in the home; husbands are the provider; obedient women submit to their husbands and support his mission.”
We hear it from The Gospel Coalition, from popular Southern Baptist Convention pastor and evangelical best-selling author Dane Ortlund, and from the not-so-fringe cult leader Doug Wilson.
We hear international super-Christian pastor John Piper claiming women should not speak, quote, or read Scripture in public. Revered theologian Wayne Grudem believes an abused wife needs the discernment of male church authority before she can seek safety from her husband. Giant-of-the-faith pastor and author John MacArthur’s “fidelity to the Bible over all else” has him preaching that women are useful for two purposes only – to keep the home clean and to have children.
Church planter and not-so-reformed pastor Mark Driscoll preaches independent women are not suitable wives; Church reformer and revivalistic preacher Dale Partridge teaches that women are “men with a womb,” “created for man,” and “designed to fulfill man’s needs”; and well-known Christian publisher Crossway believes the wide range of female emotions naturally makes women weak.
I’m gonna need a second after typing all that.
dry heaves
Excuse me for a minute.
lifts hands and rebukes the demons and evil that entered the room with that retelling of complementarian and traditional Christianity in the name of the Most High and Holy King and Creator
clears throat
Now, I don’t believe in coincidences, so when I started seeing all that as I began applying for work, I began to wonder why Evil was so determined to talk me out of working in a secular environment.
It’s been almost two months in this new workplace of mine.
No one prays before lunch. No one talks about the Gospel. No one wore ashes into the office. Christian music doesn’t play, and no one leaves work headed to an evening church function. We don’t pray over co-workers; we don’t quote Scripture at one another; and we don’t make comments about the morality of someone’s life choices or circumstances.
It’s been almost two months in this new workplace of mine.
I’ve witnessed co-workers crying together over devastating personal circumstances. I’ve watched co-workers furnish a home for a colleague and her children. I’ve had co-workers go out of their way to ensure I have food at each team lunch. I’ve seen over half the office show up on a whim to support a teammate who simply didn’t want to be alone. I’ve watched the office rally around those who walk through grief, postpartum, and chronic illness.
It's been almost two months in this new workplace of mine.
And I’ve seen more Godly heart postures, more Christ-like attitudes, more apostolic sacrifices, and more Spirit-led generosity here than I did in the three years at my last church.
It’s been almost two months in this new workplace of mine, and these “heathens” welcomed me with open arms where the church shut their doors. These “nonbelievers” have spoken more Truth over me and Life into me than the church I considered “home.” These “skeptics” and “atheists” have blessed me physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally more in the past two months than the previous three years of church-going and church-people combined.
They say, “God will meet you where you are.”
I think they meant nature or creation or in orchestral music…but for me, God is meeting me in an office, on Zoom meetings, and through people that may not even know He’s there.
If I had listened to the lies the “men of God” and “people of God” were telling me, I would have missed so many opportunities to witness the sovereignty of God. I would have missed the work God desired to do in my life!
If I had stayed at home…
I wouldn’t know the depth of my God-given capacity and ability.
I would still believe my body and her limits are all there is to my life.
I wouldn’t have learned to push forward in what is right despite objections.
I wouldn’t know that the Lord can do miracles through my hands.
I would still believe I am flighty and without discipline.
If I had listened to “church authority” and stayed at home…
I would have horded my time.
I would have a circle of people that looked identical to me.
I would have lived in the lies about my capacity.
I would have suffocated in the loneliness of isolation.
I would have limited the power of God.
But I left my home!
I left the comfortability, the half-truths, and the chains.
Just. Like. Jesus.
Like Jesus, I could have stayed home, obeying the ruling teachers of the day.
We would have missed God’s purpose for our life, though.
We wouldn’t have seen God move so mightily.
We wouldn’t have taken part in God’s Kingdom come.
We would’ve missed His redemption in the lives of many.
We would have been disobedient to the call of our Father.
It's a post-Christian America, friend, and oftentimes, the secular workplace is more holy than the Christian church.
Blessed are the women who work outside their homes, for they seek God intentionally. May you abide in the rest He pours out.
Blessed are the women who work outside their homes, for they enter into the brokenness of the world. May your yearning for better be met with Comfort Himself.
Blessed are the women who work outside their homes, for this world will one day be theirs.
May you find contentment as you wait on Him.
Blessed are the women who work outside their homes, for they show righteousness to a hurting world. May you be filled with joy by the Promise-Keeper.
Blessed are the women who work outside the home, for they are vessels of mercy.
May you know the depths of Unconditional Love.
Blessed are the women who work outside the home, for they see God’s presence.
May you experience Him more and more.
Blessed are the women who work outside the home, for they are Daughters of God.
May you experience the peace of God daily.
Blessed are the women who work outside the home, for the Kingdom of God is theirs.
May you know that suffering is not the end of the story He is writing.
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