Monday, March 24, 2014

A Woman Who Fears the Lord

If you know me at all, you know that when there's a blog silence... either I'm
A) a busy bee 
B) thinking and praying and reading the B-I-B-L-E
C) eating lots of chocolate chip cookies
D) All of the above

In this case it's definitely D!. All. of. the. Above.  But with things a'slowing down, and Spring alive and well.  I'm starting another small series of posts.  So without further ado...


"Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."
Proverbs 31:30

I don't even know where to start, but I'll just begin and hope you can follow along.  Saturday night in between the NCAA tournament and my trip to the Chargrill, which is a whole other game that we don't have time for, I was reading and journaling and fell upon Proverbs 31.  Fell upon may not be the correct term, but it was certainly brought to mind and I thank the leading of the Lord for that one.  Before we get started, you must know that many moons ago, I wrote a post about praying for your future husband.  I say many moons ago, but it was more like 8 months ago.  You can read that blog by clicking here.  Praying for the future husband is important. Believe me, I'm committed.  But to what end can we be praying for the spiritual maturity/leadership and faith of a future husband if we are not in part seeking to become the women they'd even look for.  Am I right?  And you probably just nodded your head.  We focus so hard on what they need to be, rather than praying to the end that the Lord would change our lives so that we love Him more before anything else.  Guilty as charged.  

You can read Proverbs 31 a million times.  I'm pretty sure I have come quite close.  We know some of the verses by heart.  Some would say this is such an overwhelming and exhausting standard for women.  They don't even want to look at the passage and immediately feel burnt out.  I say the Lord gives grace and His grace is sufficient to enable us to be women who fear the Lord above all else.  Proverbs 31 was not written by some man who wanted to place these crazy standards on the woman in his life.  Nope not at all.  Verse 1 clearly states this passage is the prayer of a mother for her son.  This mother desires for her son, King Lemuel, to find a woman of the highest quality - worth far more than rubies.  A woman who treasures serving her Lord and in turn that effects how the rest of her life is patterned.

The title of this segment came from verse 30 near the very end of the prayer.  I think this is one of the most important verses and really functions as the main idea.  Main ideas are usually found at the beginning of the paragraph - I didn't make an A in 8th grade Communications for nothing! But nevertheless, here it is at the end.  Main idea: A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.  We could end right there but I won't.  That could/should preach by itself.  

Now let me just get this out there for comedic relief: Being a girl who couldn't flirt if her life depended on it, I find GREAT encouragement in this verse! All I can say is praise the Lord this is not the standard for the Lord's pairing of two individuals - the uncanny ability to flirt.  But let's get real again.  Verse 30 is so packed with truth for us and for the guys.  We easily think that we have to be the cutest with our words and smiles and clothes and makeup.  We think if we could've have just said something this way.  Or if we would have dressed in a certain way.. If just _____________, then we would gain the attention of a member of the opposite sex.  That's not what this verse is about, but unfortunately that is what our minds run to because it's very much so the way of the world.  This mother wanted her son to seek the woman who feared God - who loved Him with all of her heart, who was controlled by Him, who honored Him.  These are just a few definitions of "to fear."  Are our lives centered around becoming the cutest with the most witty thing to say?  Or are we seeking to truly fear the Lord where our thoughts are directed towards Him and our actions seek to honor Him?  Such hard questions but definitely worth the time of thinking through.  Yes, we have a bag of tricks; and yes, we have a bag of make up.  But those amount to nothing.  The highest quality of a woman who is worth more than rubies is the one who fears our God.  

Not the one with the flirtatious wink across the room or the trendiest clothes or the shortest skirt...
No, the woman who honors and loves the Lord and fears the Lord.  She is the one to be praised.
And to that end, we pray...

An aside: Chargrill story, if interested.
I get out of the car thinking I see Jon Scheyer at the North Raleigh Chargrill.. staring and all.  Ten times too many.  And yet, the people of the Chargrill establishment continued to stare at me and Amanda. Until we realized this:  We. Looked. Exactly. Alike.  Grey Toms, Skinny Jeans. Hair pulled back. Pearl earrings.  And lookin' ROUGH.  Thank you Chargrill folks.  We are not sisters, but get it all the time.

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