Motherhood and the Mission of God

This is an excerpt from Women & Work by Courtney Reissig

What does the Bible Say?

You might be surprised to know that the Bible says much about work, but not much about our modern struggles with motherhood and work. The foundational principle for us as Christians is that God created us to work just as He is a worker. This work began when He created the world and then tasked Adam and Eve to tend to the garden He made for them (See Genesis 1-2). As His image-bearers, they joined God in His work of creating more image-bearers and bringing forth more life in creation. Before sin ever entered the world, we had work. And Adam and Eve were co-laborers together.

Interestingly, we can’t glean from the first chapters of the Bible what tasks of ruling and subduing are male or what tasks are female. Most cultures have a tendency to divide work sharply along gender lines, but these verses don’t draw such specific distinctions. Instead, God gave Adam and Eve a job to do: rule and reign over His creation. He tasked them with being fruitful and multiplying. In both of these tasks, their work had value in the world and value in the family. There are biological distinctions between men and women that naturally divide these tasks: although it takes a man and a woman, only the woman can bear children. But this distinction did not mean that her work in exercising dominion over creation wasn’t equally vital and necessary. Every culture and family must discern what works best in their context, but the central truth we can glean from Genesis 1-2 is that to be human is to work, and work is good.

But our work as women doesn’t always feel this way, does it? In a chapter on motherhood and work, I think we can all agree that the tasks we do every day often feel futile. You spend time doing laundry, yet tomorrow’s full hamper tempts you to believe your work is in vain. You spend time caring for patients in a hospital setting, yet being away from the home causes you to feel like you’re failing your kids. Why is it so hard? Why do we feel this tension so often in our work as moms?

We experience this not because work is wrong, but because we live in a world that is broken.

Once sin entered the world, its consequences directly affected our work (Gen 3:16-19). What was once beautiful and worshipful is now filled with pain, difficulty, and sorrow. Anyone who has given birth, tried to scrub grass stains out of jeans, or had technology fail them, knows that work is hard. And that’s not even talking about the struggle with outdoor work.

We often recognize these direct effects of the fall on our work, but the unsettling tension we feel as mothers who work is also part of sin’s consequence. As a working mom, I feel pulled in multiple directions. Depending on the context, some might tell me this tension means I am supposed to stay home. As a stay-at-home mom, I struggled to see how my time there had value. In other contexts, I could have been convinced this restlessness meant I needed to work outside the home. But what if both of those contexts are victims of something outside of their control? We are all products of our culture, but we also are people living in a certain time and place. Home and work were not always in competition – and not because all mothers were stay-at-home moms.

Should I Stay Home With My Kids?

Have you noticed I haven’t said anything yet about what the Bible says about whether a mom should or shouldn’t work outside the home? That’s because the Bible does not give us a step-by-step roadmap for these choices. Instead, God’s Word leads us on the path of wisdom. Both 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14-15 talk about the weaker and stronger brother on matters of conscience. These are areas where the Bible does not give explicit commands as it does with murder or adultery. It does not say a mom should or should not work outside the home and nor does it determine an age of her children that deems it appropriate for a mom to “go back to work.” It does not say if a mom should earn more or less money than her husband, or if he should stay home or not. As a result, it is a matter of conscience based on wisdom in determining what is best for our families.

What does Wisdom Practically Look Like?

Let’s look at three wisdom principles we find in Scripture.

1. Walk in the freedom that is yours in Christ

The first point of wisdom is to understand that God has called us to walk in freedom. Galatians 5:1 says that “for freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” The Galatian Christians were tempted to see their works as a sufficient means of obtaining salvation. Paul reminded them that God calls them to freedom because Christ paid it all. In the motherhood and work conversation, we are tempted toward these very means of slavery. We might not verbalize that our motherhood choices save us, but our heart responses betray us. We think if we make the right choice, that choice will lead to our righteousness. But Paul says that we are to walk in freedom because Christ paid for us with His very blood, and His blood is what makes us righteous, nothing else. To see our work and motherhood choices through the lens of guilt or shame puts us right back into that heavy yoke of slavery that Christ died to remove from us. Wisdom says to walk in the freedom Christ provides, knowing that our standing before God is not dependent on what we do but on what Christ has already done.

Hard seasons don’t mean you should quit.

Wisdom says to keep a long-term perspective on your work and seasons of life. A particularly hard day of motherhood or the temporary mom guilt you feel after a delayed work meeting doesn’t mean you’ve been unfaithful to what God has called you to in motherhood. It might just be hard because life is hard. Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.” The difficult season you are currently in won’t last forever. Your kids will grow up. Your job will change. You will learn new rhythms. Not giving up even when we’re tired means we figure out patterns of faithfulness as we work and mother. Hard days or seasons aren’t necessarily an indication that the choice to stay home or go back into the workforce is wrong. It might just mean we are being called to an uphill challenge right now. Someday we will run down that hill and reap a harvest.

Throughout this conversation, we must remember that even having the choice to stay home with our children is owing to privilege. Many women in our country and around the world are so busy trying to put food on the table or make ends meet that they can’t ask the question of whether they should or shouldn’t work outside the home. Income-producing work is a necessity. If you are primarily working unpaid in the home, even if your family has to sacrifice greatly, it is largely owing to privilege that you can make that choice. It’s a wonderful privilege, one I am so thankful I took advantage of, but it is still a privilege. Wisdom says that if our requirements for faithful motherhood can’t be true for all women then they shouldn’t be required. It is a gift to work in the home if you can and want to, but it is not the mark of faithful motherhood; obedience to Christ is faithfulness.

2. Give Grace to Mothers Whose Choices are Different From Your Own

We need to consider that our desire for motherhood is a good desire, and it is not in competition with our desire to work outside the home. The Bible repeatedly speaks of the importance of training our children (Deut. 6:1-9, Psalm 78:5-7). Particularly in younger years, when children need significant nurture and care, it’s not uncommon for a mother to pull back from working outside the home in order to care for her children. Once we’ve made the decision God has led us to make for our family, there is a temptation to feel like the choice we made is the “right'' choice for all women. But wisdom says to honor the choices of others, even if they are different from the ones we made. In Romans 15 when Paul speaks on matters of conscience regarding foods that were acceptable to eat, he addresses this judgment that can take place between Christian brothers and sisters. He says,

“One who eats must not look down on one who does not eat, and one who does not eat must not judge one who does, because God has accepted him. Who are you to judge another’s household servant? Before his own Lord he stands or falls. And he will stand, because the Lord is able to make him stand.”

We must remember that God is at work in many ways in His people’s lives, and He does not prescribe one right way to be a woman or a mother. Wisdom says we honor the choices of those who have chosen differently than us and trust the Spirit at work in their lives and in ours.

Can My Life be Balanced?

The longer I’ve worked outside the home, the more I think “work/life balance” is elusive. My husband and I have started asking, “Am I faithful?” instead of “Can I achieve a good work/life balance?” There are seasons when we work more than we prefer, and our home life suffers. There are seasons when our home life requires more, and our work takes a hit. But in the balancing act of working and being parents, we have found that walking in wisdom looks like asking if we are being faithful to the Lord moment by moment, knowing that each day looks different than the day before. Particularly when it comes to motherhood and work, the needs of our children vary so much each day that we can’t compare one day's faithfulness to the previous one. We simply wake up each day asking God for the new mercies He promises to provide and walk in faithfulness and obedience with what is in front of us. Every family is different. Every day is different. Every season with our kids is different. We learn to adapt to it as we keep our trust in Him.

3. A Call to View Work Through the Lens of the Kingdom

Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people” (CSB). That really captures motherhood and the mission of God, doesn’t it? How often do we work for the approval of other women? We compare our lives to the mom at the class party because she has the margin in her life to decorate awesome cakes and we settle for buying them from the store. We feel the need to justify our work both in the home and outside the home when we have conversations with other people because we want their affirmation that we are doing a good job both as a mom and an employee. But Paul doesn’t tell us to seek their approval. We only need the approval of one. “Whatever” is pretty all-encompassing. Whether you're in the home or outside the home, work with everything you’ve got, like God is sitting right next to you cheering you on. That’s the call for moms in their work. He made you in His image to work for His glory. You work for Him alone and for His pleasure.