Are you someone who tends to test your own godliness with those in the Bible? I do. Of course, I’m wired to be harder on myself than others might be. There are a lot of “heroes” in the Good Book, and I love how every one of them are flawed. David was a man “after God’s own heart” but he allowed sin to derail him more than once and failed in ways that could be portrayed on daytime T.V. today. Still, God did not strip away his title. And Abraham? Well, although he tried to manipulate circumstances to receive God’s promise sooner than was His plan, he was listed as one of the Heroes of Faith in Hebrews. To top it off, God used Abraham’s failure as part of His ultimate plan. Historically, we see that played out in the issues in the Middle East. Isaac is in the line of Jesus while Ishmael (Abraham’s son through his wife’s maid, Hagar) is in the line of Muhammad.
While failures in the Bible remind us that God uses the weakest of us in mighty ways, there are other scriptures that can make us feel as if we will never measure up. For women, that is most often the later passages of Proverbs 31. Verse 10 starts it off with A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies, then follows with a plethora of attributes that would keep us up 24/7 in order to fulfill, even if we were gifted in every way.
This part of the Bible was covered last week in my daily reading with D-Group. I shared on my January 4th blog post how I’m using this chronological program along with a podcast by Tara Leigh Cobble. As I read the scripture, I could feel the heaviness of failure press down on my shoulders. But then I listened to the accompanying explanation, and it lightened up my outlook. You may already know this, but although the author is listed as King Lemur, many Bible scholars believe it was Solomon using a pen name. In that case, the “mother” who taught him would’ve been Bathsheba.
About this passage, Tara Leigh said, “The last section of Proverbs 31 often makes women feel inadequate because they can’t really live up to this ideal, but be encouraged that this person is almost certainly imaginary. His mom is just putting together a prototype for him. As we imagine what this woman’s life must look like, we may wonder if she’s a robot. Does she ever sleep? When does she have time to take a shower? The good news is that this list of things might have spanned her entire life, not a twenty-four-hour-period…this is wisdom literature, not law.” (Day 173)
Tara Leigh explains that Proverbs 31 is pointing out the heart of a woman and what she values, not necessarily how industrious she is, and we should not compare ourselves to this ideal. I think about Solomon having seven hundred wives and wonder if even one of them would’ve made the cut. Obviously, he wasn’t fulfilled if he continually acquired wives—and let’s not forget the three hundred concubines.
This past weekend, as I flitted from one thing to the next, I considered the tasks laid out in this passage. Not many women these days select wool and flax or bring food from afar, like a merchant ship. And when was the last time you bought a field and planted a vineyard with the earnings or sat at a spindle? Instead, I patched, taped and textured a large hole in our bathroom wall, cleaned the house, dealt with Internet issues, and made birthday cards and muffins while my husband cooked dinner. Times have certainly changed. I can often get caught up with things that are not important or may not be as heartfelt as I’d like. We are all a work in progress, doing well one day and failing miserably the next. But just as God loved David even in his failures, His love for us will never change. Be encouraged.
Comments 1
Thank you for this insight. I could never have equaled to those verses. I live alone and still my house isn’t as clean as it should be.