Chariot June 2007 - Norm Wakefield

The Affirmation of Daughters - Part 5

    Fathers have the daunting task and wonderful privilege of affirming daughters so they will embrace their femininity and fulfill the God-given role for which God designed them. The past few months, I have been providing some suggestions for how a father may bless his daughter. In this article, the final part of this series, consider the importance of three more ways you can affirm godly womanhood.

Encourage your daughter to develop abilities so she can confidently fulfill the biblical role of women.

    The teen years are the season for daughters to prepare for being wives and mothers. I recognize this is contrary to the popular trend in western culture; however, most daughters will eventually marry, have children, and minister to the saints if they are believers. As fathers who love God and hold fast to His Word, we must be careful not to overlook the proverbial elephant in the room. God's Word clearly and almost exclusively affirms that a woman's calling is in the home.

    Let's first consider what is revealed about womanhood in God's Word. Titus 2:3-5 reveals that young women need to be encouraged to focus their lives and ministry around the family, the building block of the church and society.

    Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

    Women hold a significant and irreplaceable role in God's excellent management outline for the family. Without them capably fulfilling the role God planned, the family is at least greatly weakened, and at worst destroyed. If on a large scale, women abandon their God-given role, the church and society also suffer. These reasons should be convincing alone. However, this is not the reason given by the Holy Spirit as a motivation for the church, fathers, and older women to affirm womanhood in this way. The primary reason for women to be family/home oriented is this: the Word of God will be dishonored if women do not fulfill this vision.

    The Holy Spirit affirmed the woman's role twice through the apostle Paul. The second time was to Timothy in Paul's first letter to the young pastor.

    But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint (1 Timothy 2:12-15).     

    When the woman was created by the word of God (John 1:1-3) to be Adam's helper, He didn't create them with equal roles or standing in the family. Although equal in Christ, men and women's roles are suited to their physical design. In both passages above, the Holy Spirit doesn't site cultural or practical reasons for women to fulfill the family oriented role. God's creative word is authoritative. An order was established in creation, and following that order brings blessing.

    Although many passages of Scripture affirm the role of a godly woman as home and family oriented, the Proverbs 31 description of an "excellent wife" might be in Paul's mind when he thinks of God's Word being dishonored. The elephant in the room, so to speak, is that her life is centered on her family and home. Yes, she works outside her home, but only so she can fulfill her ministry to her husband and children. We should expect the Titus 2 and 1 Timothy 2 passages to synchronize with Proverbs 31 since they have the same Author.

    Perhaps a caution is in order as we think of preparing our daughters to be wives and mothers. I believe there is a danger in allowing the daughter to supplant the mother's role in ministering to her father. God didn't intend the daughter to be the helpmeet to her father. She should be a helper to her mother. Fathers need to be careful not to turn the focus of their attention to their daughters and neglect their wives. It is important for daughters to see their mothers faithfully serving their fathers and the family.

We want to affirm godly womanhood.

    I hope you can see why I call this the "elephant" in the scriptural living room. It seems for decades, the church has walked around the revealed Word of God about a woman's place and led daughters (and thus wives) right out of the home! I don't think this is the time to discuss why this has happened. The question before us is this: Do we love God's Word and want to see it honored? If we do, it seems we will affirm what God's Word affirms instead of searching for a way to encourage our daughters to be career-minded. Scripture must define godly womanhood, not the culture.

Affirm your daughters in the skills needed to be godly women.

    The Proverbs 31 wife "smiles at the future" (Proverbs 31:25). Why does she smile at the future? She smiles because she has prepared herself and her family. The excellent wife is a woman of vision. If you consider all the skills and abilities of this wonderful wife, you know she didn't start learning them after she got married. She was smiling at the future before she got married because her father and mother had prepared her for it!

     I remember seeing my daughters beam when I could truthfully say, "You are going to make some guy really happy. You are going to be such a blessing to your husband and children and thus to the Lord." I could say this because they were diligently following God's vision for womanhood. We simply looked at the verses above and considered what skills and abilities were needed to fulfill those roles. Then we led the girls to learn and practice them.

    We wanted to equip them to walk with Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, able to run the home, educate their children, and if necessary, help their husbands financially. Here are some of the skills we encouraged our daughters to develop (I'm not saying they mastered all of them, but they spent their teen years preparing to fill the roles God specified for them as women):  

�        Spiritually: How to be filled and follow the Holy Spirit (walk by faith), Bible interpretation, spiritual discernment, how to be anchored in Christ in the storms of life, freedom from bitterness and anger, restrain self-ambition, be secure in Christ, how to love with God's kind of love, how to draw from God's Spirit and power when exhausted.

�         Academically: Be knowledgeable in the basic subjects in order to teach their children through high school, have a broad basis of experience in life through traveling and interaction with people from diverse backgrounds.

�         Home-oriented: Child-training, child-loving, menu preparation, nutrition, cooking, home decorating, hospitality, home organization and cleaning, how to make learning fun, how to live with vision and a schedule on a weekly and daily basis.

�         Relationally: How to respect a husband (Eph. 5:33), recognize controlling personalities, not living in the fear of men (2 Cor. 5:9-14), avoid judging and slandering others by trusting God (Matt. 7:1-12), to forgive and when to retain sins (John 20:23), people and situations to avoid (2 Tim. 3:5; Titus 3:9), and the joy of ministering to people, especially in the body of Christ (Rom. 12:13).

�         Supporting a husband: Learn financial accountability, develop marketable skills to be used from the home, be moderately knowledgeable and skilled in sports, music, and things a husband might enjoy, learn a godly view of the husband/wife sexual relationship (at the right time just before marriage), and learn what a man considers respectful and disrespectful. 

    Affirming your daughters in godly womanhood means you lead them to prepare for the future during their teen years. If you do this, you will be enabling them to "smile at the future" and become an excellent wife and mother.

Affirm examples of godly womanhood.              

    I remember one time when the girls were young, while visiting Alma's parents, an eye make-up commercial came on TV. The thought came to me that the girls were being taught wrongly about womanhood through the ad. The eyes of the women in the commercial were what I call "hunting eyes". The women were flirtatious and obviously seeking the attention of men. The Holy Spirit led me to ask my daughters to compare the eyes of the woman in the advertisement with the eyes of their mother. Could they see a difference? They could! I took that opportunity to affirm my oldest daughter in my home, my wife, and also to point my daughters to a godly example of womanhood.

    The world's idea of womanhood is empty because beauty is vain and charm is deceitful, and that's the kind of womanhood the world affirms. I'm not suggesting women shouldn't wear eye and face make-up. The point is that godly women shouldn't concern themselves primarily with catching the eyes of men with their dress and make-up. They should adorn themselves for the Lord, appropriately for the activity, and out of love for others. Although a woman cannot be responsible for whether a man lusts after her (some men will fantasize even if a beautiful woman was wearing a refrigerator box!), she can and should be mindful of adorning herself in such a way so godly men are not distracted.

    Fathers, affirm godly womanhood also by who they watch. Your daughters are watching your eyes and noticing the women you affirm. When you ignore the flirtatious, immodestly dressed women (whether in real life or on TV or on billboards), and express your delight in those whose hearts are fixed on Jesus, you are affirming godly womanhood.

    I might sound a word of caution. If you put the emphasis on how beautiful your daughter is outwardly, you may be teaching her that outward appearance is of primary importance. Man looks on outward appearance, and so women must be mindful of it, but God looks on the heart. Rather than primarily complimenting your wife and daughters on their outward beauty, I think we affirm godly womanhood best when we encourage them to seek the Lord with all their heart, to walk according to the Holy Spirit, and live with an eternal perspective rather than a temporal one.   

Avoid putting your daughter in situations where godly womanhood is mocked and abused.

    Pause for a moment and consider what situations might militate against godly womanhood. A dad has the responsibility to protect his daughter. Remember when Jacob failed to protect Dinah (Gen. 34)? Can you think of some times when you might have failed to protect your daughter? Putting your daughter in a group of young men who are on the hunt to use women seems foolish, doesn't it? If this can happen even in the church youth program, how much more in a worldly work environment!

    When Abby and Alyssa were in their early teens, I allowed them to attend a youth program at a nearby church. Almost weekly, I found myself having to comfort them, talk them through the boy/girl situations, and help them overcome a worldview that was unbiblical. Eventually, I realized the leadership, the activities, or the teaching weren't affirming godly womanhood. Most of what we had been teaching them about life was being undermined. A few weeks after making the decision to take them out of the youth program and begin intentionally preparing for life, the girls were thanking me for having the courage and vision to make a course adjustment. Both of them have thanked me for not letting them get into situations and relationships that were damaging.

There are benefits to affirming godly womanhood.

    I hope you can see the benefits of affirming godly womanhood for your daughters. If a woman is at peace with who she is as a woman, a godly woman, it frees her from having to get the attention of other men. Furthermore, if she is secure in her identity as a woman she is free from having to prove her significance as a woman equal with men. Additionally, her security as a daughter of God will free her to love her husband and children with a quiet, trustful spirit.

    I hope you've already taken steps to affirm godly womanhood for your wife and daughters. The past six articles have provided nine suggestions about which you can pray and trust the Holy Spirit to guide as you minister to them. Take a moment to pray. As you read over these nine suggestions, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in application today.

�         Give a daily expression of non-sexual affection.

�         Provide a rich example of servant-hood and protection.

�         Encourage them to accept the way God designed them.

�         Model personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

�         Redeem your faults, weaknesses, and mistakes.

�         Lead them to find their identity and security in their relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

�         Encourage your daughter to develop abilities so she can confidently fulfill the biblical role of women.

�         Affirm examples of godly womanhood.

�         Avoid putting your daughter in situations where godly womanhood is mocked and abused.

Would you like to be on the Elijah Ministries Prayer Team?

    The backbone of Elijah Ministries is the prayer team who pray diligently for God to turn the hearts of men to Himself, their wives, and their children. Before I leave to speak, I send out a prayer team invitation to those who will intercede for God to work for His glory in us as a team for the Kingdom. Not only is it a blessing to those whom I speak and myself; but it is also a reminder to the team about the direction of their own hearts. If you would like to enter into the labor together with me, you may go to my website and click on "Prayer Team".

    If you haven't visited our website, www.spiritofelijah.com, please stop by sometime. You'll find:

*   Resources to equip you and your family

*   Previous Chariot articles

*   Norm's speaking schedule

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            Norm Wakefield
            Elijah Ministries
            P.O. Box 377
            Bulverde, Texas 78163
            830.980.5606
            info@spiritofelijah.com
            http://www.spiritofelijah.com

06.07

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