Marriage Monday - 10/19/09

"His Work"

(Pages 49-54)

This week's chapter from the Power of a Praying Wife is about our husband and his work. It opens by talking about two different extremes that a man may experience in relation to work/career. One extreme is being very lazy, not wanting to find a job, and letting the wife support the family. The other extreme is a workaholic, someone who only feels validated by the work that they do, and spends much of his time away from his family.

Fortunately for me, I truly believe my husband has a pretty good balance between work and family. But, there have been times when I felt like he could probably take on a job at a larger corporation for more pay, and most likely company-paid benefits. But at what cost? Right now, he is able to pick up the kids in the afternoon because I work 35 miles away, and one of our girls has to be picked up by 5pm. If Aaron's job required him to work long hours every day, he would never be able to pick up the kids and we would have to find different childcare arrangements that offered longer hours, that we may not love as much.

This chapter talks about praying for our husbands to find the proper balance in their work. The author suggests that the same underlying reason may cause certain men to be lazy and certain men to be workaholics - and that reason is...FEAR. The man who appears to be lazy is afraid that he won't find a job that makes him feel successful, so he doesn't even try. The man that is a workaholic is afraid that if he doesn't work so hard, he won't be able to support his family financially or that someone else will be given his position that is willing to put in longer hours. And some men don't really even know what they want to be when they grow up...so they may go from job to job trying to find where they fit.

The one thing I have prayed for prior to reading this chapter is actually for the management of my husband's company - that they would have the wisdom to accept the business that is right for them, and to decline business that would be detrimental to the company. But, I don't think I've actually prayed specifically for my husband in the area of his career because it has always seemed to go pretty well. However, this chapter encourages us to pray for our husbands even when they appear to be in a successful place - and to pray that things continue to go smoothly.

If our husbands don't have a real clear direction of where they want to go in their career, we can pray for clarity. We can pray for God to show our husbands how to put forth their best effort if they didn't have a good example set for them in their own upbringing. We can pray for opportunities to open up that our husbands would be a good match for, and that their skills would continue to develop so that they can be an asset to whatever company may hire them. If the job that they have is running them down, we can pray for God to give them strength and peace to get through the rough times.

I think maybe we don't realize how effective our prayers can be in this area of our husbands' lives because their career kind of seems to be just that...THEIR career. But because a man often feels like he is defined by the success of his work, or his purpose in life - it can affect many other areas of his life as well, which will ultimately affect the entire family. So let's be sure to include prayers for our husbands' work during our prayer time for him this week.

Next week we'll be talking about the chapter "His Finances" - can't wait to see what Stormie talks about in this chapter, finances can be tough!