The Proverbs 31 woman. Simply put:

Alright ladies, this one is for you. 

I have been studying Proverbs 31:10-31 for a few months now and have seen some important things that I never saw before that I have decided I should share. 

First I will start with sharing my reason behind studying this, I first decided to start studying it to see how my life measured up to this type of woman (if you haven't read it in a while, I encourage you to do so before you read the rest of this blog) it's not that I am trying to get married any time soon, but I do want that at some point in my future; so I figured it would be good for me to seek out (in scripture) what it looks like to be a good wife/mother. 

Basically I started by reading through it multiple times, I didn't try and focus on specific verses, I just wanted to get an understanding of what the message was. I read asking the Lord to reveal to me ways that I could go deeper and see meanings that are not on the surface. I think a key thing to know about scripture is that there can always be a deeper meaning, it is living and God can use it to show us many different things. Also, please don't take my word for all of the things I am going to share; you should always seek out truth in the scripture for yourself. It is so important to know that! Take what people say, and check it for yourself to see what He will reveal to you! 

So here are a few things that I found really cool about these verses. First thing I noticed pretty much right away is that her beauty is not mentioned as a positive. In fact, it says in verse 30 that “charm is deceitful and beauty is vain.” It just really made me think, how often do I wish to be beautiful? Or charming? Charm is in fact deceitful. How often have you tried to be charming towards someone you didn’t really care about and have it come back to bite you? Or has a guy ever been “charming” with no intention of perusing you and it ended up hurting you? Ladies, it is so important to know this deep within your hearts. Beauty is vain. I decided to take it a step further and look up the definition of vain which is: producing no result; useless. So if beauty is in fact “useless”, we should probably stop putting so much emphasis on being “beautiful”, right?  

The next thing that The Lord revealed to me really helped me go through the rest of my studying with a different perspective. Verse 10 says “an excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.” Remember that, now I am going to talk about Proverbs 3, which talks about trusting the Lord with all your heart and also about the blessing of wisdom. Proverbs 3:15 says, “She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.” (Referring to wisdom as she, not a woman) In Proverbs 2:1-10 it talks about the fact that the Lord will give us wisdom and understanding if only we seek and ask for it. Verse 6 states that “the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.” This helped me to see that I should seek wisdom and understand that He will give it to me, and that nothing else that I desire will compare to it. Proverbs 31:26 says that “she opens her mouth with wisdom.” Which means that she already has asked and has received the blessing of wisdom. If I am seeking to be this “excellent wife” then wisdom will be a key factor. I then realized that I should not be seeking to be this woman for only an earthly husband. The Bible compares the relationship of Jesus and His church to that of a Bride and Groom. We, the church of Jesus Christ are the Bride, and Jesus is the Bridegroom. I want to be “far more precious than jewels” in the sight of my Bridegroom. I must first seek to be this bride for my savior. Only then will I be able to even try and be this bride for my earthly husband.

Now onto verse 12, it says, “She does him (her husband) good, and not harm, all the days of her life.”  It doesn’t say most or some there, it says that she does him good ALL the days of her life. Not much that I have to elaborate on, just want to be sure that you see the wording there.

Verse 17: “she dresses herself with strength..” is later repeated in V. 25 “strength and dignity are her clothing..” So I decided to meditate on this for a little while, and this is how I interpreted it. Clothing is something that is visible to all who see you. People can see your clothing whether they know you well, or have just met you. I know that true strength comes from the Lord (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). I feel that these specific verses are referring to the fact that His strength is something that is visible about her demeanor. Honor or dignity is also referring to Him and the fact that she makes visible to the people around her, as if to wear it as an article of clothing, that she gives honor to the Lord. He is what people see through this woman by just being around her.

I literally have something that I have learned from each individual verse of this specific passage of scripture. I know that this might not help, and my theology could be way off, and if you believe that it is, please feel free to tell me. I do not have the time or energy to go through every single verse, but these are the ones that made the biggest impact on me (so far). I am going to say it again, because I want to make it clear. Please do not take my word for any of this, I find it to be very important that people search out scripture for themselves. I hope that this encouraged you to do so!