Proverbs 31 Amateur – Week 3

So, I was going to explore one verse a week. I had a great two week streak but then, well, I skipped the last two weeks. I could say I have been busy (and I have) or I could say I have been lazy (and I have) but the truth is that why we do what we do or don’t do rarely just has one simple reason.

Life is complicated, and hard, and messy, and beautiful, and crazy, and exhausting, and nothing less than a whirlwind. But, hey, it is fun.

Being a wife and mother is quite a life.  I have read articles about it being hard because you are always, ALWAYS, working. You don’t really ever get to leave your job. It can be thankless. And let’s face it, no supervisor is ever going to give you a raise. But all of that is worth it. Especially when we feel our husband’s embrace or see our smiling (TOOTHLESS!) children. It is in those moments that something swells up in us that makes all of this worth it, well most of the time.

But what does this have to do with our verse this week: Proverbs 31:12.

Proverbs 31:12 says:

She does him good and not evil
All the days of her life.

Like all the verses in this passage this has two parts.

The first part says she (the wife) does him (her husband) GOOD and not evil.

I like this verse. I can get behind this. I want to do good for my husband.

But all the time? Like really, every moment of every day. Don’t I get a break?

Basically this verse is saying that, as wives, we have two choices. We can either be a blessing or a curse to our husbands.

And the bible is clear that a wife can cause a bit of stress of her husband.

If Proverbs 31 outlines everything we want to be as wives, Proverbs 21 does the opposite.

Proverbs 21:9 says: It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. And Proverbs 21:19 says: It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman.

(I would be lying if I said that my husband has not scoped out rooftop real estate a time or two.)

So what does it mean to do good for our husband? The word used in this verse is the Hebrew word towb. It means to be pleasurable, pleasant, agreeable, to be a benefit to someone. It is the same word God used when He described looked at creation and said “It is good.” The word is used again in Jeremiah 33:14 when God describes His promises as good. It is a word that carries a lot of meaning.

The other word in the first part of this verse is evil. We can do our husbands good, or evil.

The word used for evil in this verse is the Hebrew word ra’. It means calamity, adversity, misfortune, even misery or injury. It is the same word used to describe the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and EVIL. It is specifically what God was trying to protect Adam and Eve from by telling them not to eat from that dang tree. It is also the same word that Esther uses to describe Haman, you know, the guy who wanted to wipe out all the Jews. It certainly isn’t a word that I want used to describe me or my actions toward my husband.

As wives we have a lot of impact on our husband’s lives. We can make it pleasurable, or we can make it miserable.

Something interesting about both of these words is that they are both action words, they mean to make good or make evil. We do this with our actions.

We do this with how we live our lives.

We do this by living in unity with our husbands.

We have an opportunity to do this every single day.

The second half of our verse this week, says “all the days of her life”…

Did you catch that? ALL THE DAYS OF HER LIFE… When I read this it seems a little daunting to me. There is no gray area in this verse, we are supposed to be good not evil (with no mention of mediocre), and we are supposed to do it always?

The reason this sounds a bit cumbersome to me (get ready for a moment of transparency) is that I don’t feel the same way about my husband ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE. When Brandon and I first started dating we were attached at the hip. When we were newlyweds we were worse. I used to get up in the wee hours of the morning to drive him to work so that we could have an extra hour or two together every day. But in the eleven years we have been married those feelings have waxed and waned. Most days, I live in a state of thankfulness that this awesome man picked me to be his wife. But some days, I don’t like anybody, not even my husband. And sometimes, believe it or not, he gets on my nerves.

But, all my days, are to be spent doing good for my husband.

Now, obviously, because I am deeply and grievously flawed this can’t happen all the time. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t try. And it is a heck of a lot easier if we are living in a state of grace. That constant place of understanding that because we are weak God can demonstrate His strength through us, because we have such a great need God has provided such a great love.

If we live in understanding that in and of ourselves we could never do all that is asked of us, but through us Jesus can work in our lives we become holier, and we do good for our husbands. We do this through God’s grace. But what happens when we aren’t walking in God’s grace….

When I begin to feel like my life is crappy, or I can foresee everything falling to pieces around my ankles, or I get stressed beyond the point of ‘I need an afternoon with a good book’, I always experience the same twinge just before everything hits the fan. This is the thought that runs through my head like a flashing neon sign:

It’s not fair.

Three little words can really screw up my morning (or day, or week, or month…). Being a wife is hard, especially for people like me. I have (a bit of a)  problem with pride. When we are frustrated with what we got, or didn’t get, when we feel like it isn’t fair, that is really pride rearing its ugly head. It is our sin nature saying “you deserve better.” This feeling, at least for me, usually doesn’t even have anything to do with Brandon but he usually gets repercussions of it.

Maybe it is just me (but I think probably not) but I feel like a servant. Not like a “Jesus came not to be served but to serve” awesome foot washing Christian servant. I feel like a dang butler. I feel like Geoffrey from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The life of a wife is about serving. The life of a mother is about serving. I care for other people’s children. I am the caretaker of my elderly grandmother. From 6:30 to whenever I have the opportunity or the good sense to go to bed I am serving others. I live in a constant place of putting off my desires to do what other need me to do.  And when I start doing it from a place of responsibility, of obligation, of self, then I start to feel like it isn’t fair.

My husband works really hard. He has a full time job in the ministry, plus an additional job that he works to supplement our income that is usually about 35 hours a week. Plus he is a full time student. But when I am operating out of my own strength, when I am in “it’s not fair” mode, all I see is that I am doing dishes while he is reading a book. Or I am cleaning toilets while he is off editing videos (doing what he loves) I can get a little jealous. And let’s face it, I DO NOT LOVE CLEANING. All I see is what I am not doing, or what I don’t have, or what I wish I could be doing. It is all about me, and my pride. And I despite all my great skills (and deep sense of PRIDE) I can’t do it. Not without the grace of God.

But we need not only an understanding of God’s grace but also the purpose of that grace. God created us with a specific purpose and gives us His grace to live out that purpose. God created Eve for Adam. It says in 1st Corinthians 11:9 that God created woman for man. God created me for Brandon. God created you for your husband. You are his helpmate. This woman that they are talking about in Proverbs 31, this woman who does good for her husband and not evil, she knows the purpose God planted in her.

We have to live in constant connection with the grace that God so freely gives to stay in the place where we are doing good for our husbands all the days of our lives. We need to understand our purpose. 

Are our husbands perfect? No, but that does change the word of God on what type of wife we are supposed to be? Nope. Not one bit. If God can love us through our messes, our “it’s not fair” days, our pride, and our generally sinful hearts, then surely we accept the grace that God has for us to be wives who bless our husbands.

This week, as you pray through this verse, ask God to do these things:

·         *  Reveal our purpose, specifically in relation to our husbands.

·        *   Show us how we can bring good (pleasure, pleasant, agreeable, to be a benefit) to our husbands.

·        *   Remind us how we blessed we are that God’s goodness is extended to us regardless of whether or not we are conducting ourselves in a Christ like manner. And help us to extend the same goodness to our husbands when they forget to take out the trash.  J