A Woman Who Fears the Lord

I was blessed beyond words to have a virtuous mother. This isn't a truth that has come to me in hindsight. I knew from my earliest days that Mom was the best woman I had ever met (and you can ask my siblings, and they'll tell you the same thing). We adored her. Other people picked up on it, too, as I remember her spending hours upon hours on the phone and at the church helping other women. God graciously has given us a great blessing through the use of technology--we have four recordings of her speaking at different women's retreats, and they are packed full of what John Piper would call Christian Hedonism.

So allow me to share a brief look into the life of a Christian hedonist (I think Mom would have approved of that title!) by sharing with you some of her words--words that were backed up by the life she lived and by the death she died.

Mom suffered from panic attacks when we children were very young. The Lord, through His Spirit and the Word, gave her eventual victory over her anxiety and fear. The spiritual lessons sunk deeply and she later rejoiced over God having lovingly prepared her for far harder testings of her faith. This is what she said in a lesson on Moses' mother, Jochabed:

In Hebrews it talks about, they hid Moses, they received the dead back again, they also were sawn in two, they also suffered persecution. But that was all through faith because we are trusting that God is going to be glorified. Really, that should be our goal, not that we have an easy life, but that God is glorified. And if it takes a tough circumstance to do it, like Job said, 'Naked I came, naked I return; blessed be the name of the Lord.'

We can trust Him in tough circumstances because...God is our only circumstance. He's the only thing that really matters. So if we are women of the Word, we will not be easily shaken.

Mom not only said these things, she lived them. Years later when suffering through cancer, she traced the hand of God in teaching her to rely on Him before putting her through this great trial. She lived these truths, and then she died with these truths giving her life a sweetness that transcended her "rotten" (her word) circumstances.

During her cancer treatment, Mom said the following:

My portion is not here. My inheritance is not in this world. The longest you can live, maybe a hundred years, is a second and then you're gone. And then what do you have? My portion is the Lord God for eternity--I have Him and that's what's true!

Knowing these truths is how we can look at our failing body, our hurting relationships, our tough circumstances and not be swayed because we choose to stand on the truth that God is Who He says He is and All that He says He is.

You may be asking, 'What does all of this have to do with the Proverbs 31 woman?' Well, I'm arguing that the 'virtuous woman' is not about all of the skills and giftings she has, but the heart that motivates her to 'do life' in the way that she does.

It's not the 'stuff' that we do. It's not the Bible study groups we go to, it's not the Sunday School we teach, it's not the nice things that we do or the right things that we do, but really it's the inward heart. See, the Pharisees did those things. They followed the Law and they missed it!...We're not just trying to conform our lives to make ourselves look like we're obedient. We need to become obedient. We need to be walking in the newness of life--to be transformed.

Remember, He said,'He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me.' The goal here is to love Jesus more and more, not to stack up, 'Well, I do this and this and this, etc. No, the call is love for Jesus--to love Him! Not like the Pharisees--the Pharisees had all this stuff, but they had no love. They still had their sin in their heart.... The whole desire of God is that we grow close to Him and in love toward Him and that we show that love by obedience.

We can become good homemakers, businesswomen, etc., but so can the world. What makes the virtuous woman unique? She fears the Lord. Her reverence and love for God colors everything she does.

If we love the Lord and are being transformed, day by day, into His image, we WILL become virtuous women. There is no secret, no tricks, no special personality. All of the virtuous women in history (representing every culture, personality, talent, age, status, etc.) have a common foundation--they feared God.