photo by msmail
The other day I was reading over on the blog; Stuff Christians Like, (which is funny… if you haven’t read it, you should!). The post I was reading was called Proverbs 31 Wife- 3000 and 8 Edition. The post was a funny list about some additional qualities that his wife had that he thought should be added to our favorite Proverbs 31 woman.
It was a cute and funny article, and since the subject of Proverbs 31 is one that is somewhat close to my heart, I decided to read through some of the comments.
In my rough estimation of the comments that I read at that time, it seems like at LEAST half of the comments on that particular post were from women complaining about Proverbs 31, which was rather shocking to me. (Maybe I should be shocked that I was shocked.) They complained that they could never measure up, that she was probably too busy, and on and on. One lady even actually said something to the effect of that we needed to take Proverbs 31 with a grain of salt because it was written by the kings mother.
Initially, I’ll be honest, that made sense to me… for about 3 minutes until I actually let that sink in. I then realized this; I don’t think it matters how much you like, dislike, understand or don’t understand a passage of scripture. The fact is, that ALL scripture is God-breathed. It doesn’t matter which person wrote a particular portion of scripture… I don’t think we should take anything in the Bible with a grain of salt.
So, what is the deal? When women read about the “perfect” woman in Proverbs 31, why do they get so snippy and snarky about it? Why do they complain about it? What is the problem exactly? Having been one of those women for a large point in my life, I think I might have some thoughts on that.
We don’t fully understand
One of the things that I really misunderstood about this passage, is reading it with the feeling of “having to do it all” – all the time.
I can’t remember if I heard this in a sermon, or if I read this somewhere, but someone explained that this passage is not about a woman who does all these things all in one day, but rather over the course of her lifetime. I don’t believe that when you have babies at home, for example, and you’re up to your eyeballs in laundry and poopy diapers that you are still supposed to be out feeding the poor and dabbling in real estate investment property. I think it’s good to read this passage with a “seasons of life” understanding. She was not doing all of these things, every single day of her life. Because that would be impossible.
Sigh of relief.
Our hearts aren’t right
I’m completely speaking of myself here… When I used to read that passage, I would automatically discount it, thinking that it was way too much, way too hard, and there was no way I could measure up to that. What I realize now is that my heart wasn’t in the right place.
When you read this passage from an external point of view, it really does look like too much. But when you read it with the right heart behind it, it kind of changes.
I’m not sure I completely know how to explain this. The more time I spend with Jesus, the more I understand Him and the more I want to be like Him. It’s also true that the more time I spend with Jesus, the more I’m able to take my eyes off of ME, and put my eyes on HIM. I’m not nearly as worried about how tired I am, or how much I’m doing. I have more of an ability to see the needs of those around me and be compelled towards helping them. Because it’s not about me, it’s about Him. It’s as if, somehow, when I’m not worried about myself, He gives me a supernatural ability to see need in people and then a supernatural ability to meet that need.
Depending on where you are focused, the old saying, “God doesn’t ever give you more than you can handle” is not necessarily true. Often, God gives us WAY more than we could handle on our own. And these are the times where we need to not focus on what we can or cannot do, but what GOD can do through us.
Could it be that we are reading Proverbs 31 with our eyes and our head, rather than with our hearts?
We have issues of pride
Yeah, I’m going there. I think that pride is sometimes way more prevalent than we realize in our lives… I know that is the case for me.
Think about some of the other “mom” blogs that you read on decorating, or cooking, or homeschooling, etc… maybe even this one, though I hope not. When you read a post about something really good that someone else is doing that you are not, what is your first reaction to that? Mine usually goes something like this: ”That’s silly”, “That’s kind of over the top”, “Well, they don’t have as many kids as I do”, or “I just can’t believe that they have that much extra time on their hands”…. and so on and so on.
What it really comes down to is my own feelings of inadequacy. And in my own pride, I have to find a reason for why they aren’t as good as me, or as busy as me in order to make myself feel better. Ugh. How ugly is that?
I think those same feelings that we feel when reading someone else’s blog, or comparing ourselves to other women in our church, are the feelings we can feel when reading Proverbs 31. What if, instead of feeling inadequate and prideful when we read things like this, we can use them to inspire us to do better?
Because you know what? You’re not really all that great. Neither am I. There are people out there who are much better at cooking than I am. There are people who are much better at organizing than I am. There are people who are much better at cleaning and decorating than I am. There are people out there who are much better mothers than I am, for goodness sake!
What if instead of tearing them down in my pride, to “my level” I acknowledged that, yes, in fact, those people are better than me at those things. And it inspired me to grow in those areas by following their example?
I’m pretty sure that I would be a better person because of it.
So ladies, as difficult as it might be, let’s read Proverbs 31 with an open mind and not with a grain of salt. Let’s allow it to inspire us, instead of discounting it or writing it off because it feels like too much.
It might actually inspire us to become better. Imagine… scripture inspiring us to become better people. Amazing concept.
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