But how can a woman be like this? It almost seems idyllic to be such a wife and such a homemaker and such a neighbor and such a teacher and such a mother. How can a woman be like this? That brings us to the last point, her excellence as a person. It all starts with the spiritual dimension. Please notice verse 30, “Charm is deceitful.” Do you know what charm means in the Hebrew? Bodily form. That’s deceitful…that’s deceitful. Some women spend all their time on their bodily form. That is deceitful because that’s not the real you. Beauty is of no real value, it’s vain, it’s useless, it’s empty. Form, deceitful. You think you’re getting something you’re not. Beauty has no real value. You want to know something? Those are the two things our world looks for. No wonder there relationships are empty and filled with deceit. That’s all they look for. Fools, absolute fools. But here’s the woman you want, a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised, give her the product of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates. What woman is this? She loves God. She’s a true worshiper. She fears the Lord. You have to live with that all your life. You live with a woman who fears God, loves God and you are in the best environment. And by the way, she’ll become more beautiful to you every passing year.
This is the woman of character. Only God can produce her. Matthew Henry said, “Proverbs 31 is the mirror against which every Christian woman must stand and face herself.” This is God’s design. And only God can produce this woman. But this is the woman God wants. This is the woman who will be praised by her children and her husband. This is the woman who will be given the product of her hands, she’ll get back everything she gave. And they will do for her for whom she did. This is the woman who is not only privately rewarded with the product of her hands by those she loves, but publicly rewarded as her works praise her in the gates. Listen, this is the woman that God wants and that every man should desire and that every woman should desire to be…one who is true to her mate, one who manages well her home, one who compassionately cares for the needy, one who lives and teaches divine wisdom with kindness, compassion and grace, one who fully fulfills the call of a mother so that her children bless her and one who though she seeks no praise will receive it anyway because of the character of her life.
I know we can’t sell this woman to our society. I just pray we in the church can continue to focus on God’s standard. It’s a high standard but it’s God’s standard. And my prayer is that every woman who names the name of Christ will seek to be this kind of woman by God’s grace. Let’s pray together.
Father, I want to pray right now for all those who are mothers, that, Lord God, You will give them the power of Your Spirit to move them toward this pattern, this design, this portrait of godliness. Also, Lord, may they know of Your forgiving grace for every failure in the process because the standard is so high. Thank You for the standard, thank You for the power in the Spirit who meet the standard, thank You for the grace of forgiveness for the failures. I would pray for every single mother through death or divorce, struggling to be all that she should be without that man to give her guidance, that man for whom she can live and in whose love she is so fully rewarded. And I would pray even with thanksgiving for those women, Father, who have not been given children because that wasn’t in Your plan, make their life fulfilled in their husband. I pray for those who have been called to singleness, may they serve You in that unique way which only the single can without having the cares of the house and the family and may they be fully rewarded in the bliss of knowing they’re in Your will. I pray for the young girls as yet unmarried that You would make them the woman that You want them to be. For the young men selecting a wife, that they would seek to find the character that is exemplified here…not in fulfillment but as the goal and direction of the woman of their choice.
And, Lord, even as I think about all of this, this is a heavy burden for women to bear and all along I can’t help but be thinking to myself who would I be to deserve such a woman whom am such a man? Lord, we fall so short. Not a man of us is worthy of such a woman. Such a woman in our lives would make us guilty. So, Lord, make us the men we ought to be. And then, Lord, I want to thank You this day for my own wife, Patricia, who has for all the years of our marriage sought to be this kind of woman…who has poured her life into me and to her children, to others, to our home and who has become so much a part of what I am that I know no longer where she ends and I begin. I thank You for the gift that she is from You to me. And I pray that somehow, Lord, I might be to her what a husband must be, that she might be fulfilled. That I pray, Lord, for all that we might be all that You would have us to be for Your glory in Christ’s name. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
