It is well known across the world, throughout various cultures that men are obligated to provide for their families. Women often talk about desiring husbands who are providers. This is a good desire because it is Biblical.
What does providing mean?
So often, people refer to provision in the sense of material and financial provision primarily. Those are important aspects of provision, but they are not the only or most important ones.
I think that finanicial provision is the easiest part of provision. Not only in our society, but globally, much emphasis has been put on men to succeed corporately, to earn money and to have possessions.
We refer to this as provision. Yet, God also commands people to relate properly with each other; not simply to perform tasks and earn money.
People must not only perform tasks, but understand how to relate to others to care for one another and meet each other’s needs. This is also provision.
Some people know how to perform, but don’t really know how to relate to others in healthy ways.
If a person only knows how to perform tasks and get those jobs done but they cannot relate to others, he or she is functioning somewhat like a robot.
God is a God of relationship. He relates properly to us as part of His provision for us. Women must understand that top priority is not a man’s financial and material provision.
He first must be a man of integrity. This is more important than a man who lacks integrity but owns things and has lots of money. Christian women are required to only become yoked with followers of Jesus Christ. These will be men of integrity.
• Security means all around safety and stability.
• Security does not mean only having material possessions, being married or living in a house with food and clothing.
If a man is a man of integrity, he will work and earn a living to provide for those in his care. An even more important aspect of a man’s provision than financial provision is to love his wife, even as Christ loved the church.
What is required of husbands in order for them to be good providers?
– To be their wives’ spiritual heads and spiritual overseers of their households. ( Ephesians 5: 22-24; Ephesians 6: 4) Not that husbands police wives like they are children or try to be their Holy Spirit. But they should be righteous examples and make sure they don’t cause their wives to stumble.
-To be safe for their wives- physically, emotionally and spiritually, and all around.
-To be emotionally available for wives.
– To provide means that husbands don’t find wives’ desires, needs, talents, inputs and concerns to be annoyances or something to dismiss. But they care for their wives through love, seeking to meet their needs, effectively addressing their concerns and not interfering in their wives flourishing.
– Husbands who are good providers don’t have a “can’t be bothered” attitude.
– To provide means a husband has a positive and ongoing presence, being present for his wife and his children as much as possible.
– To provide, he doesn’t provoke his children to anger, but brings them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
This often is downplayed or pretty much overlooked. I say this because I see so many men focus primarily on material and financial provision, in order to be good providers.
Many women look primarily for material provision in men when they are looking to get married. It is no surprise to me that a lot of men who lack integrity are chosen by women who believe they are good providers because of those men’s financial provision.
These women seem to understand provision as primarily being a material thing. This has been taught to some men and women. It is wrong conditioning.
Overall, provision requires a lot more providing than earning money and buying material goods.
I addressed this because a lot of women still are conditioned to focus on what a man has, moreso than who he is.
This is not only unfair to the men, but it also can endanger women. Focusing on what a man has instead of who he is gives him a ticket out of culpability when it comes to having right character.
So many times, a woman has put up with a lot of mistreatment when a man has money. This shouldn’t be.
Certainly, women obviously play significant, pivotal roles in caregiving, nurturing and being helpers to their husbands. This is also provision.
Women are not let off the hook. Women are to be proper helpers to their husbands, to care for their children and families and to be blessings to them. Unmarried women are just as important. What matters is to fulfill God’s will in our lives.
Helpful Bible Verses:
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
– 1 Timothy 5: 8 KJV
And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
– Ephesians 6: 4 KJV
– Proverbs 31 (on being a godly wife and mother)
