proverbs31-woman.com

She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

I’m currently reading a book by Larry Burkett called Personal Finances for background research on a budgetting session I’ll be presenting on at my church next month. In one section he writes about striving for excellence and quotes 1 Peter 4:11, reminding the reader how important it is that we use our abilities for God’s glory. He then goes on to say that “it is important that wives and mothers excel at what they do. Usually the mother becomes the teacher of habits in the home, and her attitudes are generally reflected by her children. If she excels at what she does and keeps the home well-organized, she can be a great asset to home financial planning.” I wrote after that paragraph ‘Proverbs31 Woman’ because that is exactly what he was describing (he missed it!).

Verse 16 of Proverbs 31 shows us that this woman spends her money wisely and makes it work for her. She uses her earnings to provide for the family. Not only that but what she chooses to do with the money is something that would keep producing over time, i.e. the vineyard that would keep producing grapes for wine, that she can sell, and then plant more vines, or buy more land, or do something else with those funds. Above I mentioned Larry Burkett and how he talks of the wife and mother excelling at what she does and being an asset to the home financial planning and in Proverbs 31:16 we see the same thing.

If I’d not been doing this study I probably wouldn’t have seen this passage in Larry’s book in the same way. But I feel that as you’re learning one thing, God backs it up with other things, to reinforce the lesson. Have you found that to be so? It now means that as I present on budgetting next month at my church, I’ll be able to share what I’ve been learning from Proverbs 31 as well as from Larry Burkett’s book and other things I’ve been reading also.

Prayer: Father, help me to recognise when you are sending lessons that are from you. Help me to see the connections where you are involved. Thank you that you care enough to keep sending messages and messengers through various avenues until my ears, eyes and mind recognise they are from you.

She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up whilst it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls.

Wow! A lot to live up to! The Proverbs 31 Woman is not only wise with what she chooses to work with, she is the one doing the work. She selects carefully the items she brings in to her home, and the foods she feeds her family and servants. Having eager hands indicates that she loves what she is doing and pours herself into what she is doing for household fully. That she can’t wait to get into what needs to be done each day.

I looked up ‘eager’ in the Collins English Dictionary and it describes the feeling (and it is a feeling) as being ‘impatiently desirous’, or ‘anxious or avid’. Another meaning is ‘characterized by a feeling of expectancy or great desire’. So the verse above could well mean that she was anxious to get her work done (and if there’s a lot to be done in a day then I guess we all feel that way and are keen to get an early start to achieve as much as possible), or perhaps she was pleased with her plans for her family for the day and could not wait to get it completed as she had a great desire to share it with the family. There are a number of ways you could read this. But the end result is, I’m sure, that she had much to do and she was responsible for the end result of what needed to be done.

She works long hours, getting up before the rest of her family, to prepare for her day and to prepare food for them. But it also shows something else. Don’t forget the mention of the ‘servant girls’. Verse 15 shows that she didn’t work alone – she had help, in this case, her servant girls. But an important point here is that she also cared for those who helped her. Whilst it is not common today for the majority of us to have servants, it would be an expectation that family members pitch in and help with family matters and errands. The mention of the servant girls shows that she didn’t do it all alone, although she had responsibility for what needed to be done.

Bringing things from afar, being like a merchant ship, indicates that she not only made use of resources available close by, but if there was something not good enough (or not available) for her family, she sought further afield to find the right things to bring into her household. Sometimes we just ‘make do’ with something we’ve found close to home, although it’s not quite what we were looking for, or not quite the right quality, or not quite the right… something, but because of lack of time, resources, or just plain impatience, we tend to ‘make do’. This verse shows that the Proverbs 31 Woman didn’t just ‘make do’, she brought things from afar into her household.

The Proverbs 31 Woman was ultimately a wise shopper, careful with the household income, careful choosing the foods and items purchased for the household, careful with what she did with the hours she had, providing for her family in a loving and wise way.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, help me to be wise with what I choose for my family, with the hours I work in my home or out of home, and grant me the eagerness I need to carry out my duties as wife and mother in the way that You would desire for me.

resources, income,proverbs 31, wisdom, work

Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.

Does this describe you if you are a wife? This is not to say that the wife is his slave, but that he values her abilities and skills and appreciates all that she contributes to the household and the family. That everything she does is to the good of the household, thereby bringing with her a sense of confidence, security, contentment, warmth, love, all the things that a wife and mother represent. Other versions talk about the heart of the husband having full trust in her. And that’s how it should be – a wife having trust for her husband and her husband having trust for his wife.

Have you given good reason for your husband to trust you and have full confidence in you? It’s not too late to work towards this goal and become a proverbs 31 woman.

Prayer: Father, please work with me each day and help me become a proverbs 31 woman, a wife to make my husband proud and a mother to make my children proud.

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.

The verses from 10 onwards describe a woman that any man would be proud to have as his wife. Here we are given a wonderful description of what a wife can be and what she can do for her husband and family.

The Collins dictionary gives the meaning for noble as ‘of, or characterized by, high moral qualities,….. grand or imposing; magnificent… of superior quality or kind; excellent’.

What a description to live up to! And yet what a wonderful way to be thought of – more worth than rubies. What woman wouldn’t feel a glow of warmth within if that is how she was described by her husband? If you are a husband reading this, how often do you tell your wife that you appreciate her and what she means to you? Have you wondered how your household would manage if she wasn’t around anymore?

And if you’re a wife reading this, what do you do that would make your husband tell you something like that? What have you done to make him feel fully appreciated to the point that he wouldn’t know what he’d do if you were no longer around?

Not to mention the whole family – it is good for them to feel proud that you are the woman, wife, mother of noble character and that you are in their family.

noble character, rubies, proverbs 31:10