Friday, February 4, 2011

A Trustworthy P31W

Oh, I really don't feel like posting right now. There are a bajillion things on my mind and I feel like I'm going crazy. Actually, I'll admit that I'm having a hard time trusting the Lord right now, so please, please pray for me. In the meantime, I'm going to post because I think it will do me some good. :)

Proverbs 31:11 "The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he will have no lack of gain." 

Okay, if I acted like I knew what this verse meant, I would be lying. Because the truth is, I'm having a really hard time wrapping my mind around the last phrase. No lack of gain? What does that mean?

Wait, wait. Let's just start with the first section. "The heart of her husband safely trusts her." 

When I am studying scripture, one of the first things I want to do is read different translations of the same verse. The translation above is NKJV (my personal favorite) but lets see what else we can find.

NIV - "Her husband has full confidence in her." NIV is the only thing I could find that was different. The other thing I like to do while studying is get my handy-dandy Strong's Concordance out and look up key words in the verse. Believe it or not, this will help you understand many verses a lot better. In this case, I looked up "heart". And heart in this since is referring to the intellect of the husband. I don't know why that is relevant, I just thought I would throw that out there.

Okay, this verse suggests something HUGE about the Proverbs 31 Woman.

She is trustworthy. When people talk to her, they trust her not to spill their secrets, or tear people down. They trust her to back her words up and always treat people the same way.

*ouch* Does any of this sound familiar? It does for me. I know that I am guilty of at least one of those things every day. So what does it mean to be trustworthy?What are ways we can be trustworthy? Or NOT trustworthy?

Here are some of the areas I think trustworthiness covers. All of these I'm guilty of.
- Not lying, but telling the truth. Duh.
- Not slandering other people, but always building people up. In front of them or behind their back.
- Keeping your promises.
- Matching your walk and talk.
- Following through your commitments instead of not finishing what you start.
- Keeping secrets.

I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can think of for now. So, the obvious step from here would be to talk about how we fail in these areas and what are some practical ways that we can change.

Lying v. Honesty: Your mom comes home. You are annoyed that she is home so early. You haven't gotten much stuff done and you have lolly-gagged like crazy and now, she's home and she is going to ask you what you've been doing? You go in your room to avoid the question. But she asks anyways. "So, what did you do today?" You reply, "Oh, English."

"Anything else?"

"No, just English. It was really hard today, so I didn't get much done." Little does she know that that was a total lie. Today, in English you reviewed antecedents and it was a breeze.

Listen to what the Bible has to say about Liars. Proverbs 19:5b "And he who tells lies will not escape." Wow, creepy verse. Let ponder that. We may get temporary relief for not having to deal with our mom and her rantings, but in the end of times we are going to stand before a holy judge, THE HOLY JUDGE and have to give an account for every word we speak. "But that's hardly even a lie!" Some may say. But God has told us, as Christians (and Proverbs 31 Women) to live holy, set apart and sanctified lives and that means that all lies, big or small should bother us and drive us to repentance. Because God wants to put us on a guilt trip? No. God wants us to become like Him. That established, lets challenge ourselves. Every time we feel like exaggerating the truth or telling little white lies, let think about this verse. Proverbs 19:5. Better yet, lets memorize it. The way we defeat sin in our life is with the word of God (and His Grace of course). Pray that when exaggeration or lies are on your tongue that God would bring this verse to you and stop you. He will. It's annoying when He does that. It's happened to me. But think about it, each time you decide to be truthful, you become more like Christ and that is rewarding!!

I'm feeling as though this may have to be a multi-part post.

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