Most of us could tell you exactly what it is like to live with the people in our house.
We know which child leaves every light on, what our husband does at the table that annoys us, how our voices sound when we are upset with one another, and will not say so.
What almost none of us know is what it is like to live with us?
Nobody hands you that information.
The people who have it either love you too much to say it or have learned what happens when they try, so the question never gets answered unless you go looking for the answer yourself, and even then it is very easy to answer it with the person you meant to be instead of the person who showed up at supper last night.
So here is the question.
Would you want to live with you?
Solomon did not soften it.
"It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house" (Proverbs 21:9).
Ten verses later he came back to it, "It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman" (Proverbs 21:19).
He was describing something that anyone who has lived in a house like that already understands, that a big house does not fix a hard person, and that a man will pick a corner of the roof in the weather over a warm chair next to a woman who cannot be satisfied.
He had the same kind of thing to say about men.
"Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go" (Proverbs 22:24).
Notice what that verse assumes, that a general person has the freedom to walk away from an angry man.
A wife does not have that freedom, and neither do children. (Obviously I’m not talking about abuse here, I’m not addressing the extreme in this article)
The people in your house cannot choose a different roof the way a neighbor can, and whatever you are, they have to live inside of it every day.
That is what makes the question so heavy.
Think about what your family gets when you are tired.
Anybody can be pleasant after a good night of sleep and a morning that went the way it was supposed to.
Tiredness is where the rest of it comes out, the impatience that was always there under the good manners, the sharp tone you would never use with a person at church, the way you answer a child's question without looking up.
Your family lives at the end of your day.
They get whatever is left after everyone else has had the best of you, and most of them have been getting it for years without ever telling you what it is like.
There is a scene in Mark 6 that is worth sitting with here.
The disciples had just come back from being sent out two by two, and they were spent, and Jesus said to them,
"Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat" (Mark 6:31).
They got in the boat and headed for somewhere empty, and the crowd saw where they were going and ran along the shore and beat them there.
When the boat landed, thousands of people were standing on the bank waiting.
Jesus was the one who had ordered the rest, so nobody can read this as a verse against sleeping.
What matters is what came out of Him when the rest was taken away.
"And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things" (Mark 6:34).
A tired Savior, and what the people got from Him was compassion, because compassion was what was in Him and tiredness only let it out.
That is the uncomfortable part.
Tiredness does not put anything in you.
It takes the lid off of what was already there.
Paul wrote, "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Galatians 6:9), and we usually apply that to church work, to the ministry that happens in front of people.
It applies just as much to the well doing that happens at eight o'clock at night with the evening chores half done and a child who wants to tell you something long.
Isaiah said that God "giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength" (Isaiah 40:29).
That is a promise to be asked for at the beginning of the evening, before you have said the thing you are going to have to apologize for.
There is something practical here too.
Tell them.
There is nothing weak about saying to your husband or your children, I am worn out tonight and I need you to bear with me.
They would rather hear that than guess at it, and they are going to find out anyway.
Now think about whether your home has room for other people's imperfections.
Martha kept a good house.
She opened it to Jesus and to whoever came with Him, and she worked hard to make it right.
Where her house ran out of room was for a sister who did not see the evening the way she did.
"But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me" (Luke 10:40).
Read that slowly and notice what happened.
Her complaint about Mary turned into a complaint against the Lord before she was through the sentence, and that is what happens in every house where one person has decided that her way is the only right way to do things.
Irritation with the people eventually turns into an argument with the God who put them there.
Jesus answered her gently and He did not give her what she asked for.
"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:41-42).
He let Mary be Mary.
Every home has a standard in it, and usually one person holds it.
There is a way the towels are supposed to be folded and a speed at which a job is supposed to get done and a tone you are supposed to use when you have been asked to do something twice.
The trouble is that the people who live there are bumping into that standard all day long, and in some houses the standard is set so high that everyone in the family is always a little bit in trouble.
Children learn to perform in a house like that.
They learn that a broken thing gets a sigh, and after enough sighs they stop bringing the broken thing to you, and then one day they stop bringing the broken things in their lives to you as well, and you will not understand why.
Paul told the Colossians, "Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye" (Colossians 3:13).
Peter said, "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8).
Ask yourself honestly whether the people in your house have ever had the experience of their faults being covered by you, or whether they have mostly had the experience of their faults being counted.
The psalmist asked, "If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" (Psalm 130:3).
If God kept the kind of record on you that you keep on the people you live with, you would have been put out of His house a long time ago, and He has not put you out, and that ought to settle the matter of how you treat a spouse who did the thing again or a child who did it slower.
Last, think about whether you are bringing peace into the room.
You already know that a person can change a room by walking into it, because you have felt it when somebody else did it.
Shoulders go up or they come down.
Conversation keeps going or it stops.
Your family knows the sound of your feet in the hallway and they know what it means, and they have made their adjustments before you have said a word.
Whatever you are carrying when you come through the door, the house gets it.
On the night of the resurrection the disciples were behind locked doors, ashamed of how they had run and afraid of what was coming.
"Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you" (John 20:19).
He had every reason to come in with a rebuke.
Peter had denied Him three times and the rest had scattered, and He was standing there with the wounds in His hands to prove what it had cost.
The first word out of His mouth in that room was peace, and He said it before anyone had explained himself.
He had already told His disciples to do the same.
"And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house" (Luke 10:5).
First.
Before the questions about whether the thing got done.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger" (Proverbs 15:1).
"And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace" (James 3:18).
Peace in a house is sown by somebody.
It does not grow on its own, and it will not last in a home where one person's mood decides how everyone else's evening goes.
Paul said, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (Romans 12:18).
As much as lieth in you.
He was talking about your part and he was leaving everyone else's part to God, which means you do not get to wait for your husband or wife to be peaceable first, or your teenager, or your mother in law etc.
You are responsible for what you bring through the door.
And peace has to come from somewhere.
You cannot make it up at the threshold, and you cannot fake it for very long with people who see you every day.
"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27).
The only peace anyone has ever carried into a room was peace they got from Him first, usually early, usually before anyone else was up, usually on a morning when they would rather have stayed in bed.
So, would you want to live with you?
Would you want to be married to the person you are at tired o'clock at night?
Would you want to be the child who has to figure out which version of you is coming down the stairs?
If you really want to know, ask them.
Ask your husband what you are like when you are tired.
Ask your children, if they are old enough to tell you the truth, whether they feel like they can bring you a broken thing.
Then do the hardest part, which is to say nothing in your own defense and take what they said to the Lord.
He knows all of it already.
He was wearied with His journey and still sat down at a well and gave living water to a woman the whole town had written off.
He kept Peter after Peter denied Him and Thomas after Thomas doubted Him.
He walked through a locked door and spoke peace to men who had not earned it.
He is very easy to live with, and He is willing to make you easier to live with too, one tired evening at a time, if you will ask Him before you open your mouth instead of after.
So, I’ll ask you again:
Would you want to live with you?
Biblical Womanhood
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