Modeling Humility (Day 3)

It’s more important in your home and in your marriage that you model humility than that you model perfection. Your husband and your children already know you’re not perfect. They’re just looking for you to admit it, to acknowledge it when you do blow it.

We pick up at verse ten, and we read that very familiar verse, “Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies.”  “Who can find a virtuous wife?” Some of your translations say, “an excellent wife.” Some of them say, “a wife of noble character.”

That word virtuous or excellent is a difficult word to translate from the original Hebrew language. The word has to do with strength. It’s often translated “army” or “wealth.” It’s talking about a woman of moral strength, a woman whose character is strong.

A woman who has godly character is a strong woman. The world would have us think that a godly woman is a weak woman who just gets run over, and she never has any opinions, never has any thoughts, never says anything. This is how the world would caricature the godly woman.

The world has it all wrong.

If you are married, let me point out that this woman is a wife before she is a mother. The children come later, not only in order, but also in order of priority. Her most important human relationship is with her husband. Here is a woman who delights to be a wife.

As God sees us, we’re perfect. We have the righteousness of Christ, and there’s a sense in which He has made us, past tense—if we’re children of God—He’s made us already that excellent, virtuous person. The challenge here is to live like who you are, to live out the reality of who you are in Christ.

Then there’s a present, ongoing sense that we are becoming this kind of woman. It’s progressive. It’s the outworking and the development of what God has already put in our hearts if we are children of God—cultivating who and what we are in Christ.

Then, and this is what really encourages me, there’s a yet future sense, when it comes to being an excellent woman, a virtuous woman, and that’s what we can look forward to. It’s that final, completed state where we are glorified. We are sanctified. We are perfect. We are mature. As we’re in process, we can look forward and know that God is making us into that kind of woman.

If we’re allowing God to have His way in our lives today, this is not a standard that we will never be able to match. It’s a standard that God is committing to conforming us to. He will perfect that which concerns us. “He who began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (KJV). He will bring it to completion.

The Scripture says, “The righteous man falls down seven times” (Proverbs 24:16). Sometimes I think that may be a day or even an hour. He falls down seven times, and what does he do? He gets up again each time.

You say, “I’ve blown it. I just haven’t had that servant’s heart. I haven’t been that kind of devoted wife. I haven’t been committed to my home and family as I ought to have been and the qualities we’re going to see in this woman.”

Well, get up. Repent. Get new grace and go on. Let God continue to take you in that process of molding and making you like His Son, Jesus.

One old-time writer on the book of Proverbs said, “Perhaps one reason of the rarity of the gift is, that it is so seldom sought. Too often is the search made for accomplishments, not for virtues, for external . . . recommendations, rather than for internal godly worth.”¹

We read in the book of Ruth, chapter three, where Boaz says to Ruth, “All the people of my town know that you are a virtuous woman” (verse 11)—an excellent woman, a woman of strength and moral character.

Proverbs twelve, verse four, tells us that “an excellent wife” or “a virtuous woman”—same phrase—she “is the crown of her husband, but she who causes shame." The opposite of a virtuous woman or a woman of character is a woman “who causes shame,” and she is like, get this, “rottenness in his bones.” She makes him feel decayed and falling apart inside. She makes him weak. It’s amazing the impact that you have on your husband.

I discovered a gem of a book a couple of weeks ago written by a man in the 1880s, and let me read to you what he says in this book called Home-Making about the influence of a wife on her husband. He said, “No wife can overestimate the influence she wields over her husband, or the measure in which his character, his career, and his very destiny are laid in her hands for shaping.” ²

This author is saying you cannot imagine the influence that a woman has, the power she has over her husband. He goes on to say, “How can she make sure that her influence over her husband will be for good, that he will be a better man, more successful in his career and more happy, because she is his wife? Not by . . . perpetual preaching and lecturing on a husband’s duties and on manly character.”

Now, most of us are familiar with that way of trying to influence men. We wouldn’t quite have used those archaic words, but haven’t we all been guilty of trying to explain to men what it’s like, what they should be like and lecturing on their duties and responsibilities?

Well, this author goes on to say she can only have this influence for good, “. . . by being in the very depths of her soul, in every thought and impulse of her heart and in every fibre of her nature, a true and noble woman.” Then listen to this last sentence. “She will make him not like what she tells him he ought to be, but like what she herself is.” 

You want your husband to be a man of virtue, to be a noble man, a man of spiritual strength and character? Then set out, not to change him, but set out to be the kind of woman with the kind of character that you want him to have. The Scripture says that kind of woman is a crown to her husband. She blesses him. She brings out the best in him.

Women, we have so much power and influence over the men around us. I’m not making allowances or excuses for misbehavior on the part of men, but you know, that’s not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to seek God, to pursue Him, to let Him mold us into His image. I think we can’t even begin to imagine what the influence and the impact will be on those men around us when we become the kind of women who influence them by our noble hearts and character to be men of God.

Martin Luther described his beloved wife, Catherine, whom he affectionately called Kate, and he said, “The greatest gift of God is a pious amiable spouse, who fears God, who loves his house, and with whom one can live with in perfect confidence.”³ You can be that kind of gift to your husband. Your worth will be more than that of rubies.

Then remember that that means your worth is not found in what others think of you. It’s not found in what your husband thinks of you or what others say about you, but your true worth and your true value are found in your inner character and walk with God. May it be excellent, virtuous, and noble.

     So cute! Man I love those quotes! Every time I read them I hope that the same could be said of me in my relationship with Nathan. In my wedding vows, I almost wrote "be the wife you deserve" but I changed it and put "be the wife God has called me to be" because my opinion could change on what I think he "deserves" but God's standard for me never falters and through His help I can be that wife.

     I'm also greatful to know that it's ok to fall, to fall, to mess up. Along as I turn my heart back to God and try to make the next moment a better one. One where I depend on Him all the more and die to myself, crucified.