Kingdom Woman: Embracing Your Purpose, Power, and Possibilities (19 page)

What did I learn from this experience? God knows the desires of our hearts. And He often—but not always—honors them. I don’t recall ever getting on my knees and asking God to give me a brown-leather sofa. But I do know, without a shadow of a doubt, that my loving God made sure that the sofa I wanted was conveniently available to me at a time when my own planning could not cause it to materialize.

Proverbs 10:22 says, “God’s blessing makes life rich; nothing we do can improve on God” (
MSG
).

It is such a wonderful thing to know that God hears us even when we don’t say a word. When He blesses us, He does more for us than we could ever do for ourselves.

Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the
LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

God hears us. He knows where we are, what we are going through, and what we desire—even if we never say a word. He loves us unconditionally and delights to illustrate His love at unexpected times and in unexpected places.

Divine Order

Chrystal’s illustration reminds us of God’s love and faithfulness that show up so clearly as we honor Him with our decisions and align ourselves under Him.

The primary passage written about divinely established order is found in
1 Corinthians and involves this concept of alignment. Paul highlighted this reality in the setting of an unruly Corinthian church located directly in the heart of this most profligate city of the first century.

If you have ever read 1 Corinthians, you know the church at Corinth was far from saintly. There was no order at all. In fact, everything was chaotic. Out of that atmosphere arose division, pain, and disappointment within the church. Because of the mess, Paul directed the Corinthian believers to the basic premise that underlies everything.

This might be similar to how a parent would address his or her children when they have become unruly. The parent starts with the foundation: “I’m in charge here.” Paul wanted to remind the unruly church at Corinth just who was in charge—God—and how He had ordered things. So he wrote it down for them, as we saw in chapter 7:

Paul didn’t dance around it. He didn’t sugarcoat it. He made it plain. When God established His order of things, He didn’t hide it in some obscure location. He stated it clearly:

1. The man is the head of
   a
   woman.
   
2. Christ is the head of every man.
   
3. And God is the head of Christ.
   

Before we go on, I want to let you know that I realize that this is a sensitive topic. Trust me, I know. As I said earlier, I have counseled both men and women for thousands of hours, and the area of headship and order is often a delicate spot. So, before we go any further, I want to make this point clear:
Order has nothing to do with equality.
It has everything to do with functional effectiveness.

Jesus is equal to God. Yet while Jesus is equal to God in His being, He was not equal to God in His function on earth. Jesus said when He came to earth,
“For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). He also said, “My food . . . is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). What Jesus did was submit to the Father in order to carry out His function on the earth while at the same time being equal to His Father (Philippians 2:6).

God always works through an ordained structure. In other words, you can’t get God’s involvement if you create your own structure. Satan went to Eve to flip God’s order because he knew that if he could get Eve out of alignment, then both Adam and Eve would be distanced from God (Genesis 3). When roles get flipped, hell breaks loose.

I realize that sometimes people mix that up and take
function
to mean
inequality,
so they dishonor and disrespect women. The Bible knows nothing of that. That’s why Scripture calls the wife a joint heir—an equal partner (1 Peter 3:7,
ESV
).

There is a distinction between equality of
being
and equality of
function
. Everyone doesn’t play the same role. While every married woman is equal to her husband in being, she is not equal to her husband in function. When you are within your prescribed role, God is free to flow His kingdom blessings both to you and through you.

Now, I know what some of you are saying: “But Tony, what if my husband isn’t a kingdom man? What if he isn’t aligned under God? What do I do then?” The answer to that is simple: You align yourself under God’s Word and His will while praying for your husband to get in alignment as well. As we saw earlier, Zipporah is an excellent example in Scripture of a woman whose husband, Moses, was not following God’s will in a particular situation. God had instructed Moses to circumcise his sons, but Moses did not follow through with it. As a result, God’s anger burned against Moses so much that God was going to kill Moses. Aware of this, Zipporah stepped in and carried out God’s command.

God withheld His wrath from Moses because Moses’ wife stood in the gap for him. Submission means doing so “as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). When we read of the example of kingdom women in the New Testament, it says, “For
this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands” (1 Peter 3:5).

Submission acknowledges that the man is in a position of authority, but he never has absolute authority. For example, God is not asking you to submit to physical or verbal abuse. When a man seeks to harm a woman with his body or with his words, she is not called to submit to that.

What Paul wrote concerning alignment didn’t just apply to women. He wrote that Christ is the head of every man. A man has to submit to Jesus Christ to open the flow of God’s blessing into his home. If you are with a man who is not in alignment with God, Peter explains the power that you as a kingdom woman can have in that situation:

As a woman, you have the power to influence your husband through what you do. And as we saw in the case of Zipporah, God will take notice. That’s not to say that you should never speak up. The verses are more indicative of a quiet spirit. The truth is still the truth, and all believers are called to speak the truth in love. Because each man is accountable to God, to encourage him in his role and to live in alignment with God is an appropriate thing to do.

One practical way you can influence your husband is by encouraging him to read
Kingdom Man
along with you. Let me be the bad guy and give him the straight truth on his role in your home. Sometimes men will listen to another man more easily than they will listen to a woman. If it’s not
Kingdom Man
,
encourage him to read spiritual growth books with you or to listen to biblical teaching on CD or via the Internet.

Many women have a problem with alignment because they think,
But I am smarter than my husband. I make more money than my husband. I am more educated than my husband. I have more common sense than my husband. I can’t align myself underneath him.
Well, let’s suppose an eighteen-wheeler is trying to merge onto the interstate. Let’s also assume that there is a Kia coming down the expressway with the right-of-way. The eighteen-wheeler has to yield. Now, the eighteen-wheeler may have more size than the Kia, but the Kia has the right-of-way.

Can the driver of the eighteen-wheeler say, “Because I have more than you have, you stop on the highway and let me on”? If there is an accident, it is the eighteen-wheeler driver who is going to be at fault. Even though the truck has more weight and size, it is operating illegally.

Alignment has nothing to do with how much you bring to the table. Alignment has nothing to do with how much education, income, or fame you have. It has everything to do with God’s ordained order. When order is followed, it opens up the channels for God’s kingdom power to flow.

Kingdom Parenting

Volumes can be written on the area of kingdom parenting. Training up the next generation of kingdom men and women is one of the highest responsibilities that a parent can have. And while not every woman will experience what it is like to have biological children, many women who have never given birth have adopted or become spiritual mothers to relatives, church members, or neighbors. The role of parenting belongs to all of us to some degree. Single mothers in particular feel as if they face an overwhelming parenting challenge in trying to cover all of the basics that their children need. Parenting is no small role, and all of us—including me—can stand to improve how we do it. (Chrystal will look at this more closely in the next chapter.)

Scripture tells us what happens when parenting isn’t applied according to kingdom principles. A curse will occur: “The young will rise up against the old,
the base against the honorable” (Isaiah 3:5). The entire culture—the nation at large—suffers when children are not parented correctly. Raising kingdom kids isn’t just something to do so you will have nice holidays as you get older. Raising kingdom kids is an essential component to preserving the culture from moral and spiritual decay.

Why does God want you to have children in the first place? Well, I can tell you one reason why He does not: God is not trying to create look-alikes of you. That’s not His goal. God’s goal for kingdom men and kingdom women raising kingdom kids is to replicate His image on earth. He wants look-alikes of Himself. The purpose of children is found in God reproducing His image in humankind all over the earth so they can advance His kingdom.

Children have a spiritual reason for existence, not just a biological, physiological, or familial reason. God wants parents to transfer a theocentric—God-centered—worldview to children. Raising kingdom kids means giving your children a kingdom perspective so they will align their decisions with His will throughout their lives. This, in turn, will bring glory to God as they reflect His rule on earth.

To raise your children with a kingdom perspective is to love them fully. By love, that doesn’t mean buying them a new Xbox, clothes, and toys. There is nothing wrong with buying things for your children, but what they truly need is to learn how to be responsible, patient, hardworking, and spiritually minded. Those are the greatest love gifts you can give your children, because those gifts of love will enable them to be successful in life.

And just a note for single mothers: There will be times when you feel like you can’t be everything to your children. Most likely you are working out of necessity to pay the bills, and your time is limited. However, God will help you do the best that you can to bring positive influencers into your children’s lives. Regardless of your particular circumstances, your goal is still to equip them to become kingdom men or kingdom women someday.

Never underestimate the power of a kingdom woman as a mother. For example, Scripture tells us that Timothy had a God-rejecting father. He did not have a kingdom man as his dad. Yet Timothy still wound up serving God faithfully because of the teaching and encouragement of his mother and his grandmother. Teaching your children to be committed followers of Jesus Christ
despite the reality that their father may not be, or those around them may not be, is one of the most important things that you can do as a mother.

Paul taught that kingdom women are to be “workers at home” (Titus 2:5,
NASB
). A daughter was thumbing through the family photo album one day with her father when she came across her parents’ wedding pictures. She looked at her dad and said, “Daddy, when you married Mommy, is that the day you got her to come and work for you?” Now, I know what you may be thinking:
Tony, I’ve gone to college just like he has. In fact, I have more degrees than he has. I can make more money than he can. Why do I have to work at home when I can work better than him outside of the home?

My answer is simple: Titus 2:3–5 makes it clear that a kingdom woman does not neglect her family for the sake of her own career. The passage doesn’t say that you can’t have a career—or even a very successful career. It is just that your career is not to come at the cost of caring for your home and family.

If your home is never clean because your priorities outside of the home have dominated both your time and energy, then you need to re-evaluate your priorities. As we saw earlier when we examined the woman in Proverbs 31, to take care of the home does not mean you cannot be successful elsewhere. It simply means managing the home in such a way that each member is best positioned to live for the kingdom. A kingdom woman achieves supreme significance through raising up the next generation according to God’s principles and precepts.