The heart of her husband safely trusts her; so he will have no lack of gain. ~Proverbs 31:11
He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like foliage. ~Proverbs 11:28
He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered. ~Proverbs 28:26
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
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7 comments:
31:11- when we are trustworthy women, our husbands trust us (and visa versa!) then there is no need to find "gain" (def: to get something desired) in other things other than the Lord and his will, and each other.
11:28- this goes back to "prudent" that we talked about yesterday! that we must live simply and then the excess that we have we use for the Lord and his kingdom!
28:26- this is so common in our culture!! and even in many parts of the church! this idea to "believe in yourself". Noone likes to think about human depravity and that we may not be able to do it ourselves! The wise man does not trust in himself, but in God.
have a great day ladies!
I liked everyone's definitions of prudent. It seems that word might carry through this entire chapter - especially the "frugal" definition. Much of what God has spoken to my heart in the past regarding Proverbs 31 has been about frugality. But that could be because it is where I am at in my life. In the beginning frugality became part of my life out of necessity, now, even if we came into great amounts of money I would still want to honor God with frugalness.
I could relate to Jill asking Arlin about verse 11. I did the same thing more than a week ago-mostly as a joke. I was at the tail end of preparing the house for my mom's arrival the next day and Marc kept telling me all the things that were left to finish. I agreed and told him not to worry-it always gets done. And he gave me that look (you know the one that says a thousand words in one look). Needless to say the house looked better than it has in a long time-I believe it might have even been sparkling. :) The next day I read this verse and really felt convicted that my husband DOES NOT have full confidence that I can get my job done. So when I asked him about the verse, he proceeded to tell me all the ways he has confidence and how he tells all the ladies at work about it. However, this was the part I don't understand (help me ladies, if you have any insight) when he is at work (or at the city gates as proverbs says it) he says he is proud of all I do, but when he is home I never feel like what I have done is enough. I feel like I always fall short in his eyes when it comes to the house (Am I divulging too much personal information?) How can he be confident and not confident at the same time? Thank you Jill for your encouraging question. . .Are you happy in your marriage? It's a great reminder ALWAYS!
I also like how today's verse is written in a different translation (I'm not sure which one):
"The heart of her husband trusts safely in her. . ." I liked the thought of his heart feeling safe in her. Usually it is the other way around - the woman's heart feeling safe in him.
I wanted to share what Laine had to say about today's verse. She focuses on the second half of the verse "so he will have no lack of gain" relating to the budget. Her posts on budgeting are mostly what God used to teach me about frugality (and there's that word again). Hope it blesses you as it has blessed me. :)
http://www.lainesletters.com/letters/thebudget.html
Sonja
Had a little bit of extra time this morning as the kids are sleeping in after a late night and the daycare kids are quietly sitting at the table with me coloring. I always get soooo encouraged reading Laine's old posts (I know I have mentioned this a hundred times) but I thought I would link a few of her budget letters here for you all:
http://www.lainesletters.com/letters/fearlessfood.html
http://www.lainesletters.com/letters/financialdiet.html
There are mnay more, but the kids are now awake. :)
The race begins. :)
Blessings
Sonja
Great insight! I enjoy reading all the comments and learning from each of your thoughts.
I read NASB for study and it says, “The heart of her husband trusts IN her.” I was interested to dig a little deeper into the word trust and found that while it does mean trust as we generally define it, also means that he takes refuge in her. This alone was enough to challenge me for the day! I had to ask…When my husband arrives home from work and all the stresses of his day am I a refuge for him, is our home a place of refuge? Is he able to come home and breathe a sigh of relief or is it another environment of stress and demands? I admit it is stressful for me taking care of the household, challenges arise during the typical day and it does at times spill over into our evenings. I know it’s not realistic to expect that this will never happen but I’d like to be more intentional about being a refuge for my husband and having our home be a place that he can feel ‘sheltered and safe’ in.
The second part of the verse ‘and he will have no lack of gain.’ I do find that this is a problem in our current Christian culture, and remember it well from the early years of my own marriage; living out of our means, and then complaining to our husbands that we don’t have enough money. I like the way it is explained in the commentary I read, “The wife keeps the family possessions scrupulously together, and increases them by her laborious and prudent management so that there is not wanting for him to gain that which he did not properly acquire.” Complaining to our husbands that there is not enough money causes them to feel a failure at home and rather than doing so, we should learn to ‘increase them (the family possessions) by our laborious and prudent management.’
Lord thank you that you work with us as clay, molding and changing us into the wives you want us to be. Help us to be moldable, and bring us to the place of resembling you so much that our old selves are no longer visible.
Oh Ladies,
I am so hungry for encouragement today. I ran across this AWESOME article from the magazine I mentioned a few days back called Above Rubies. It reminded me of the verse we read about beingour husband's crown. It is all about being a QUEEN as God has called us to be. We have a joke in our family that I am the Princess and Kirsten is the Princess in training. Just yesterday I joked about this with her and she boldly piped up and said, "Mom, you are a queen not a princess!" So I send you all yet another link to encourage you all to be the QUEEN God has called you to be:
http://www.aboverubies.org/articles/english-language/-homemaking/391-homemaking-called-to-queenhood
Sonja
I know my husband trusts me with many things. From training our children wisely, to managing our finances, and keeping our household in order. I like Courtney's list of areas of trust. I think the area I would have to work on would be my emotions. Sometimes I get so stressed and frazzled with things my husband tends to get the blunt of it. I know he doesn't need that stress he gets enough of it from his work. I just pray that the Lord will work in me in that area.
Wow, Ladies! What a challenge yesterday! I literally thought about our verses (particuarly 31:11) all day yesterday. I never got around to posting anything though...just one of those days. I have enjoyed reading each of your comments and insights and am learning so much from the challenges you all face. Thank you for sharing and for the encouragement!
I found it so funny that the day we are studying about our husbands having full confidence in us and fully trusting us, Nathan requires me to do something that I know he doesn't always have confidence in me to handle. (I know that look of a husband too, and unfortunately, he knows the look from me too.) I truly see God being greatly entertained by us...are we God's sitcoms? :) I think that as long as we are truly striving to work at the things our husbands don't necessarily have too much confidence in us handling or doing, that is all we can offer...and perhaps those are the areas that the Lord wants and desires us to notice in our lives because it takes the emphasis off of ourselves and us doing it and turns our eyes to Him as we know we cannot do it all alone - that we need God to walk with us through them. Perhaps with the Lord's help we make baby steps and we gain our husband's confidence in us in those areas little by little until eventually we've gained his full confidence in that area! All because God was our helper!
Do you think we put too much pressure on ourselves, complicate things, and overprocess everything especially when it comes to our relationship with our husband and our marriage? Do you think it's because we will accept nothing less than perfection for ourselves? (Not always a bad thing so long as it doesn't become our obsession and gets in the way of our relationship and that it doesn't bring discouragement to us and ultimately to our home - kids and husband included.) Nathan lacks confidence in me regarding phone calls...I could overevaluate that and blow it out of proportion to say that he doesn't have confidence in the way that I manage the entire home. Knowing my husband and the way that he's wired...his word is his word...if it's the phone calls that he lacks confidence in me then it is phone calls...if it were the way I managed our entire home...he would say just that. Perhaps I want the problem to be so much harder than what it is but could it really be as simple as making phone calls? Can it really be something that simple and *ahem* easy.
So many challenges came out of that one little verse yesterday. I found the list from the Proverbs 31 ebook to be challenging as well. I was also challenged by reversing the thought (is that taking this a little out of context)... Do we sometimes lack confidence in our husbands? Does my heart safely trust in my husband?
In the end though, regardless of whatever our husbands lack confidence in us with...we can ask ourselves the ultimate question...can our husbands safely trust their hearts in us?
Kim
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