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How Should We Then Live?

The Jewish people asked Ezekiel this poignant question when he confronted their sinfulness (Ezekiel 33:10, KJ21). For them, it was a life-or-death question.

Many ministers’ wives, however, ask the same question when faced with the demands of ministry. It was the most frequently-asked question I heard when I traveled with my husband. “How should I live my life as a minister’s wife?” The question implied an underlying assumption that a minister’s wife should live a certain way.

Several years ago an extended study was made of ministers’ wives. The study showed that ministers’ wives fall into four categories: the active team worker, the background supporter, the detached, or the detached in rebellion. When I read this study, I realized I had been in several of these categories at different times.

Before our children were born, my husband and I were team workers. Though I did not share pulpit ministry, I was a part of everything else in the church. When the children came, their needs required me to be a less-active background supporter. In one church, because of unusual circumstances, I detached from active ministry. Though I was the same person, changing circumstances changed my roles as well.
“But how should I live as a minister’s wife?” you might ask. The answers from the study and my experience are the same. No one way exists that a minister’s wife should live, other than as a committed follower of Jesus Christ.

When we are fully committed to the Lord, we respond to His leading. At times, He leads us to active ministries in the public view; at times we follow Him as though walking alone by a quiet stream. Either way, all we should do is follow Him and let Him shape us into the persons He wants us to be.

Prayer for this week:

Lord, help me today to be the woman You want me to be. May I be sensitive to the needs of my husband and family, as well as the needs of the church.  Make me pliable and willing to change as circumstances require. Help me to remember that what I am is more important than what I do. Amen.

PEGGY MUSGROVE is a licensed Assemblies of God minister. She is also a speaker, freelance writer, author and prayer group leader. Her latest book, Musings of a Maraschino Cherry was released in 2004.. You can visit her at www.musgroveville.com.

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