Thank you for your responses to last month’s first topic on this subject.
We are going to get into some “ouchy” matters as we look at God’s directives on the virtues of a godly woman.
God dives right in, and by His gracious admonitions via the Holy Spirit we are about to get more than our toes wet. Older women, are we ready to be used? Young women, is your sober mind open to sound and valuable counsel resulting from years of Bible study and practical experience of older women? (I’m not referring to myself. I’m laying out a few thoughts, but hopefully someone whom you know, or to whom He will lead you, will be your discipler.)
Isn’t it interesting that the first virtue is “…love your husbands” (Titus 2:4)? “But sometimes he is so unlovable!” That’s not the point — “love your husbands,” the Bible says. It’s your obedience, not his worthiness. We dwell on his negatives to a point that they are all we focus on. Then we start talking about it. Why? Can anyone make him over? Do we want sympathy? Are we gossiping? Yes! We forget that it is our responsibility to PRAY for our husbands, and it is GOD’S responsibility to make him GOOD.
I learned a lot about prayer during those 11 years I was a missionary in the Philippines with my first husband, Robert. And I am still learning. The China Inland Mission (now Overseas Missionary Fellowship) had an appropriate principle — “God moves men through prayer alone.” It works in every venue including loving your husband. Oh, yes, and it works in us wives, as well. Oooooh!
Women have seen great things happen when they “lay off” and pray. Let me tell you of an incident. A Christian young woman came to me in frustration, aggravation, and tears. Her husband had not performed as she thought he should. She was lividly mad at him. She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to be in the same house with him. Through God’s looking glass of Scripture we scrutinized her attitudes and his problems. Note where we started. Deal with me first, Lord. Search my heart. Take away the dross. Take me through the cleansing fire. How much had she figured God in all of this? Not until she went to the Word. This was an excellent opportunity for personal self-examination. Oh, it is so much easier to sit at a computer and write it than it is to live it.
The more we think about a negative, the more it becomes fixed in our mind. This is the time we should become absorbed with God and His Word and the things that are true/truth. When our minds are occupied with the awesomeness of God, the sacredness of His love, and the power of
His Word, many aggravations are as though they didn’t exist. Putrefied water and clean water cannot occupy the same pool.
When we women get emotional, we don’t think rationally, and we leave God out of the equation. We are told to think on whatever is just. That means to “think on God’s standards.” We need to do our homework with our Bible open, and with prayer, paper, and pencil. “I don’t have time for that, you say. It seems we can hear, “Well then, dear daughter, lose the victory.”
Signed: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
