Okay, don’t laugh at me for reading this! Disciplines of a Godly Woman by Barbara Hughes is actually an amazing book!
Why did I read this you may ask?
This is a book that Sally (my wife) got as a gift from someone and it’s been on our bookshelf for as long as I can remember.
I entered ministry at the start of 2024, shepherding youth and young adults at our local Church. I ended up pastoring about seven youth girls with a couple of volunteers and also led the young adults ministry with my wife in our small, cozy apartment, where 90% of the attendees were women. I quickly had to change gears in the way I was thinking, and remembered this book on the shelf. The intention was to understand how to think like a woman and how I can pastor women. But I just ended up getting blessed by myself. Like literally blown away by this book. I’m going to give this book a rating of 4.5 stars.
Truthfully, this blog was very stressful to write and has taken me months to even get my ideas down on paper. I decided to write this blog from the perspective of how this has enhanced my faith and excluded anything to do with gender roles. However, I would still like to preface, my intention is not to offend anyone or come off the wrong way. So, if there are sections you don’t agree with, just remember that I’m a man and I have filtering issues. Please read with caution and grace.
I’m going to break this blog down into several sub-topics:
- Submission
- Habits
- The Church
- Marriage
Submission:
A hard pill to swallow. For anyone.
Obviously Barbara Hughes wrote on this topic from a woman’s perspective, but it truly humbled me because it made me reflect on how I should live as Christian.
It’s about taking the focus off of me and putting the focus on God. This is what the Gospel tells us. Hughes gives an example on how we are confused about the Gospel, because when you ask someone how they know they are a Christian, they answer by saying: “‘Because I accepted’ or ‘I prayed’ or ‘I went forward’”. It’s all based around “I”, when in actual fact, the Gospel is about what He has done!
Check out this power message by Frank Turek on the reason why Charlie Kirk went to heaven.
Having gone to Bible college, and knowing that it’s all about what He has done, if someone asked me the same question, I think by instinct I would have answered quite similarly.
Hughes quotes E. Stanley Jones, a missionary:
“If I throw out a boathook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.”
This truly made me think… deeply think…
Am I submitting to the will of God?
Hughes then goes into legalism vs. grace, which ties into this topic of submission. I highly recommend going deeper into this topic by reading the book.
Habits:
As I said earlier, if I am responding to people who are asking how I came to faith by starting with “I”, is this just a reflection of my faith? How do I make sure that I am redirecting my focus onto God in all areas of my life?
Just because of our strong will, our habits of narcissism doesn’t change overnight. It requires discipline and endurance as Hughes put it as “the day-in, day-out grind of everyday life”.
Once we encounter the love of God, it is impossible NOT to strive to become more like him. Yes, definitely you will fall and fail because we are all sinners. However, the discipline, the training and the labour we go through to become more holy, only drives us closer to God. Paul also describes this in 1 Timothy 4:8.
So where do we start?
You start by opening the Bible. As Timothy Keller once said: “The Gospel affects everything”.
And why is this important?
Hughes quotes from another book by Harry Blamires - in short, we as Christian are in misery due to “religious anorexia”, where we are losing the appetite to grow as Christians (or in Christ). Well, you’re blessed that you are here! Because the whole purpose of The Calling Compass is not to lose appetite in finding comfort in seeking discomfort!
Don’t just be satisfied by living as a so-called “Sunday Christian”, but seek to be more personable with God, like you are when you want to get to know “the love of your life”. When you meet someone that you’re interested in, do you not study that person by going on their social media pages? By asking mutual acquaintances about that individual? And by asking lots of questions to the individual themselves?
Then why not do the same with God? You can start by opening the Bible.
The Church:
The Church is a broken place, a hospital for the sick, where sinners dwell.
The problem with the Church today (maybe something the Church has always experienced in the past?), is that Christians are deceived to think that the Church is meant to be a place full of angels and clouds. People walk in with a mindset that the Church should be perfect. And then, the moment people start seeing things in the Church that don't fit within the criteria of how the Church should be in their individual minds, they’re ready to jump ship (sometimes leaving Christianity).
In fact, if you haven’t experienced brokenness within a Church yet, you will definitely witness it soon. Because it's a place full of broken people. I also remember hearing this somewhere - but if you acknowledge that you’re broken before God, it makes sense that the Church is broken because you’re attending it! However, the beautiful thing about it is, because we are broken we come to the hospital - to be healed, to be treated, to build relationships, and to be part of a family. This is why it is immensely important that we communicate clearly, forgive one another, repair any misunderstanding and reconcile as quickly as possible. Because when one part of the body fails, the whole body will be affected one way or another.
Marriages:
I totally agree with Hughes' statement that despite all the resources we have access to today, such as books, videos, counsellors, Christian couples fail to understand their Biblical roles within marriages.
God is a God of order, and we have been created to reflect his character, as we are made in His image. Theologian, Wayne Grudem describes the order within the trinity so eloquently in Hughes’ book (emphasising that this order exists even though all members remain equal and is one God):
“It is the Father that planned redemption and sent his Son into the world; the Son obeyed the Father, accomplishing redemption for us; and the Spirit brings to completion the work that has been planned by the Father and begun by the Son. The Father directs and has authority over the Son, and the Son obeys and is responsive to the directions of the Father. The Holy Spirit is obedient to the directives of both the Father and the Son.”
I’m not going to break this down on how it should look in marriage, but I highly recommend you reading Hughes’ book to understand further the roles of both woman and man in a marriage.
But what I will do is breakdown Hughes’ commentary around Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, because this is what really blew my mind. I use the following as a framework of humility within my marriage with Sally.
Andrew was actually one of the two disciples who first heard about Christ. The first thing he did without any hesitation was run to his brother, Simon to tell him that they have found the Messiah. He then took Simon to Jesus, who was then renamed to be Peter.
From that point on Andrew was labelled as “Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother”.
Andrew was in Peter’s shadow. Especially because Peter has such a big personality. If you didn’t know, go watch “The Chosen”. It really depicts his personality. Peter somewhat comes out arrogant… Kind of reminded me of myself (Sally agrees) and made me repent (LOL).
What stood out for me in Hughe’s commentary was that Andrew would have most likely have known about this outcome. After all Peter is his brother, who he has grown up with his whole life. He would have known that he was going to be the sidekick, the benchwarmer, all while Peter becomes the M.J, the Tiger, the Musk of the disciples (AKA the Star!). Yet, Andrew still gave up his seat selflessly to his brother. And that should be our heart to our brothers and sisters.
How profound is that?! Is it just me?
This is the type of humility I want to replicate in all areas of my life.
Again, I can’t say this enough. I highly recommend this book (even if you’re a man). I’m not even joking, it’s so good that I’d read it again!
Give it a go: https://amzn.to/47XUM1v