What does your home mean to you?

Perhaps its your place of refuge and security. Maybe its your greatest financial investment. You probably even spend countless hours making your home as beautiful, clean, and inviting as you possibly can.

You would never grab a sledge hammer and start knocking holes in the walls of your home just for the fun of it.

You would not intentionally tear down your home with your own hands.

And yet, Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands.”

I don’t think that the foolish woman intentionally sets out to tear her home down with her own hands. She can’t be THAT FOOLISH, right? And yet, whether she means to or not, home destroying is exactly what she does.

And, you know what? Tearing our homes down with our own hands is scary easy to do. I have taken the sledge hammer to the walls of my home way more often than I would care to admit. Here are some ways that I have been guilty of tearing down my own home, brick by brick.

How does the foolish woman tear down her home?

1. By Not Prioritizing Her Relationship with the Architect of Her Home

A foolish woman does not spend time in God’s Word, reading His blueprint for her life. She does not spend time in prayer, asking God to align her heart with His will for her life. She does not seek Biblical wisdom. She does not ask God to give her the strength to do what is right.

A foolish woman thinks that she can build her house in her own strength and according to her own plans. So, she grabs that hammer and starts “building” – not even realizing that she is actually “destroying”.

2. By Following the Wrong Blueprint

Because the foolish woman is not prioritizing her relationship with the Architect, she is easily led astray into following the world’s blueprint for her life instead of God’s blueprint.

The Bible tells us that loving parents correct and discipline their children for their own good….

But, when the latest edition of “Good Parenting Magazine” tells the foolish woman that disciplining her child will cause him to grow up to be a violent sociopath who will hate her… she sees the truth behind the statistics and decides against disciplining her child.

The Bible says that the borrower is slave to the lender….

But, when the foolish woman’s friends tell her that a child simply can’t have a magical, complete childhood without going to Disney World, she whips out her credit card and makes the dream vacation happen.

The Bible tells us to not neglect the meeting together of the brethren….

But the world tells the foolish woman that her child will never get scholarships to college if she doesn’t excel at competitive ice skating…. and the competitions are usually held on Sunday….

So, for the good of her child’s future, the foolish woman pulls her family out of church Sunday after Sunday so that they can make it to the ice skating competitions.

The Bible encourages us to be in prayer for our families….

But the foolish woman is so busy making elaborate cookies to impress the teacher and other moms in the 3rd grade home room that she has no time to spend in prayer… and another prayerless day goes by.

The foolish woman is fully convinced that she is building her home. Unfortunately, she is following the wrong Blueprint. In truth, she is pulling her home down with her own hands by following the world’s philosophy instead of God’s.

3. By Not Protecting Her Relationship with Her Fellow Builder

A foolish woman values every relationship over that of her husband. Where she feels torn between her husband’s needs and her children’s needs, she will always satisfy her children first. She seeks to please people outside of her home – to the neglect of her marriage. Her words are not pleasant and encouraging toward her husband.

She sees no need to lift him up in prayer and to set aside some of her own desires to help him.

The foolish woman sees no need to invest time and energy in her marriage.

4. By Complaining on the Job

Rather than displaying an attitude of joy, the foolish woman makes her family miserable because of her incessant complaining. Her negativity changes her home from a place of peace and refuge to a place people desire to escape from.

5. By Not Practicing “Safety First”

A good construction worker regulates her own behaviors so as not to put other workers in danger.

But the foolish woman sees no need to practice self-control.

She forgets that her family can get seriously injured by her lack of control. When things get tough, the foolish woman lets go of all self-restraint. She screams and wounds with her words and blames her reactions on the people closest to her. She lashes out at whoever is nearby and blames it on her “hormones”. She allows her emotions to dictate her words and actions.

And, when she sees that her words and actions have left her children or husband bleeding, she reasons that it is their fault – they had it coming.

The foolish woman sees no need for God to change her heart. She does not seek to learn self-discipline.

6. By weakening the Foundation of Her Home with Disrespect

The foolish woman allows disrespect to go uncorrected in her home.

The foolish woman displays a disrespectful attitude towards her husband in front of her kids.  She finds it amusing when her children disrespectfully call out faults in her husband. She makes snide remarks about her children’s teachers and coaches.

More cracks in the foundation appear as the foolish woman fails to correct her children when they are disrespectful towards her or other adults. She allows her family to view entertainment that portrays disrespectful attitudes as normal within families.

At first, this disrespect rears its ugly head as a disdainful comment directed toward a sibling. But, as it goes unchecked, this disrespect quickly escalates until every comment between parent/child and between spouses is dripping with sarcasm, disrespect, and an apparent desire to rip each other down.

The foolish woman does not realize that this disrespect is eroding the very foundation of her home.

7. By Not Building the Exterior Walls of Her Home

Walls are essential to homes. A home without walls, open to the elements and invaders, is not a place of refuge and security.

Yet, the foolish woman does not build the exterior walls of her home. She does not actively and intentionally decide which influences she will allow into her family, and which influences she will guard her family from.

The foolish woman does not protect her family. When her kids nag her to allow them to watch the latest “cool” movies or play the newest video games, she doesn’t have the backbone to say “No, those influences will not come past the walls of this house.” She caves in to her children’s whims and allows her children to watch whichever movies they choose and to listen to music and play video games without supervision.

She has no discernment when it comes to the influences that are entering her home. And, she leaves her family vulnerable and unprotected.

8. By Focusing on the Decorations While the Walls are Sagging

When we think about our homes, it is easy to focus on the wall colors or the beautiful throw pillows on our couch. We often forget that the boring, rugged wood studs are the backbone of our walls.

The foolish woman gets so caught up in focusing on the decorations in her home that she doesn’t notice when the structure starts dangerously sagging.

She is busy with volunteer work at church and school. She is the “go-to” woman when something needs to get done. People looking in from the outside are amazed at how much she can get done in a day.

Meanwhile, her 12-year-old daughter is struggling with over-eating and is getting teased at school for her weight. Her 10-year-old son spends over five hours a day playing video games and has started showing signs of serious addiction. And the vast majority of her communication with her husband is achieved through texting because they are both just so busy….

Unfortunately, the foolish woman does not see these issues as structural issues. She is not well grounded in the Bible, so she doesn’t see these problems as heart problems.

Furthermore, she simply doesn’t have the time or energy to deal with these issues.

The foolish woman is too busy baking those important cookies for the church get-together.

9. By Loving Her Family More Than God

When the foolish woman’s kids make decisions contrary to God’s Word, the foolish woman feels powerless to correct them. She will not discipline her 3-year-old when he grabs a cookie and defiantly stuffs it in his mouth after she told him he was not allowed to have it. She will not throw her 13-year-old daughter’s mini skirt in the trash. She will not destroy her 15-year-old son’s smart phone when she finds he’s been using it to view pornography and listen to R-rated rap.

She is too afraid that any drastic actions to correct her children will permanently damage her relationship with her kids.

So, when the foolish woman is faced with a choice of obeying God or “maintaining her relationship” with her kids and making them “feel loved” – she will side with her kids every time.

She believes that she is “loving” her kids and maintaining a relationship with them by ignoring their rebellion. She may even verbally rebuke them, but she won’t take the drastic action needed to re-direct her children’s lives.

The foolish woman doesn’t realize that, by allowing her kids to live in rebellion to God and disobedience to authority, she is jeopardizing their lives and their every souls.

10. By Checking Out Before the Job is Finished

Parenting is hard. And, somewhere right around the tween and early teen years, the foolish woman gets tired. So tired, in fact, that she checks out. She no longer takes an active role in trying to guide her older children. She lets them have their way and checks out, even though the job is not yet finished.

The foolish woman starts looking for ways to “escape” from her family. She spends more and more time at the gym, scrolling through Facebook, or picking up extra hours at work. She looks for satisfaction in other areas of her life and emotionally abandons her family.

She reminisces about how “fun” it was to be a parent when her children were little, and how much she hates being a parent now that her kids are older – right in front of her own children. She clocks out of the parenting job, before the job is finished.

Are You Destroying Your Own Home?

Dear fellow mom, how are you doing? Have you fallen into any of these “foolish mom” traps?

I know the ways that a foolish woman destroys her home. I have fallen into all of these “foolish mom” traps, and I know I will fall into them again in the future. But, I serve an amazing God who convicts my heart through His precious Word, forgives me of my sins, and gets me back on track.

Praise be to God!

Regardless of whether you have fallen into any of these foolish mom traps, you can ask God and your family to forgive you, then ask God to change your heart so that you can seek Him first and be the mother that He created you to be.

You can, with God’s help, get back on track and start building your home again.