Did you know that God has appointed you to be a watchwoman over your home? Proverbs 321:27 says: “She looks well to the ways of her household, and eats not the bread of idleness.”
The Hebrew word for “looks well” is “tsaphah.” It means “1) to observe and keep watch, 2) to lean forward, to peer into the distance, and 3) to be a watchman.”
This woman constantly observes what needs to be done in her home. She does not let things go unnoticed. She also prepares for the future. She has enough food and other necessities stored up against a day of hard times, shortages of food, or calamity. She does not live only for today but is well prepared for any emergency.
But primarily, she is a watchwoman. The Hebrew word used here for the woman is the same word that is used for the watchmen of the city in the Bible. I’ll give you the references at the end of this post.
A watchman cannot be a watchman unless he is at his post. We cannot effectively watch over our home and our children if we are not in our home. The enemy of our children has power to get at them when we are not watching over them or when we put them in daycares and public schools. Therefore, we watch with our beady eyes, and we watch in prayer.
We not only watch over out little ones but our big ones too. When raising our children, I found I had to be a keen-eyed watchwoman when they were teens more than at any other time! I had to be on the job. I couldn’t leave my post. Isaiah 56:10, 11 gives a scary picture of watchmen who are not doing their job. “His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark: sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber . . . they all look to their own way, every one for his gain.”
If you have a watch dog, you’ll want it to be a barking watch dog. You want a dog that lets you know a stranger is around. We must also learn to be barking watch dogs. No, I don’t mean a screaming mother who is always yelling at her children. As my husband would say, “No, a thousand times No!” We bark at the devil, not at our children.
There are two aspects to motherhood. Firstly, the gentle, nurturing anointing that God has put within us. Secondly, the powerful, protective anointing that revolts against evil and all subtle works of the enemy that seek to pull our children away from God. We will not stay silent. We will not sit around while the enemy lurks. We will go after the enemy. We will do everything in our power to save our children from the claws of the enemy, just like young David put his hand in the mouth of the lion and pulled out the little lamb to save it (1 Samuel 17:34, 35 and Jude 23).
Read prayerfully the following passages which speak to watchmen. They also speak to us as mother watchwomen (Ezekiel 3:7-9; 17-21; and 33:1-9). God holds us responsible to warn our children. If we don’t, their blood is on our hands.
Blessings and love from Nancy Campbell