Proverbs 31 Woman

There are things consciously or subconsciously that I feel like I need to be doing or have accomplished to succeed as a wife, mother, Christian, and just an adult in general. I want to be this certain person, a perfect person.

Something that was brought to mind today when coming to God with this was the Proverbs 31 woman. That I should read it. I honestly didn’t want to. I was afraid that I would just add to my list of things that I should be, as I have before when reading it.

God reassured me and suggested I go into it with an open mind. So I tried to read it not as a list of things I had to do, but stuck with the theme of the first verse.

Proverbs 31:10 “Who can find a wife with a strong character? She is worth far more than jewels.”

What character traits does she show in the things she does? I began to make a list as I read not focusing on the tasks themselves. As I was making the list a lot of them pointed to a woman of God... wise, tender, strong, purposeful, works as though for God, smiles at the future, humble, giving…

Then I got to the end and it clicked.

Proverbs 31:30 “Charm is deceptive, and beauty evaporates, but a woman who has the fear of the Lord should be praised.”

It’s not about the specifics (wake up early, stay up late, make your families clothes, be a business woman, etc) which God had me overlook. It’s not even fully about the qualities that I made a list of. It’s about fearing God.

That alone is our task to accomplish, to set our sights on. To measure our life by. God in all his glory, what He has done for us, our relationship with Him.

Then why the list of all the things a great woman does?

It’s a joyful promise, a glimpse, of the person you’ll become through God. An example of the fruit you will bear as someone who fears the Lord.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Upside Down Way

Up until the moment that I wrote this, I’ve viewed Abram in quite a negative light. “He’s so passive. Besides going where God calls, He doesn’t seem to follow God in any of these situations.” While Abram has moments of not trusting God, he also has moments of reflecting Jesus and what Jesus stood for. “Now, Lot who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents. But the land was unable to support them as long as they stayed together, for they had so many possessions that they could not stay together, and there was quarreling between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock…So Abram said to Lot, ‘Please, let’s not have quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, since we are relatives. Isn’t the whole land before you? Separate from me: if you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.’” Genesis 13:5-9 CSB Abram was not avoiding conflict here. He faced it. Did he lay d...
Read more

You Don't Have to be Perfect

“He also said to Him, ‘I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.’ But he said, ‘Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?’ He said to him, ‘Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ So he brought all these to him, cut them in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut the birds in half….When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying ‘I give this land to your offspring, from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River. Genesis 15:7-10,17-18 CSB This is an obscure weird occurrence for us to read about. Surprisingly it was weird in Abram’s time as well, but for very different reasons. The instructions that God gave to Abram were something he was familiar with. It was a common practice wh...
Read more

Worshiping Our Savior, the Creator

"You are to take seven pairs, a male and its female, of all the clean animals, and two of the animals that are not clean, a male and its female, and seven pairs, male and female, of the birds of the sky – in order to keep offspring alive throughout the earth.” Genesis 7:2 (CSB) Once I was able to get past the initial shock that it wasn’t just 2 of each animal, as I had grown up thinking, I was then curious about why He was so specific and why there needed to be more of the clean animals for them to survive than the unclean. Was it because of the Jewish laws of only being allowed to eat clean animals? “Every creature that lives and moves will be food for you; as I gave the green plants, I have given you everything.” Genesis 9:3 (CSB) No, the Jewish laws weren’t established yet. They were free to eat any animal. “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” Genesis 8:20 (C...
Read more