We just returned from a birthday party—a double birthday party, which meant twice as many guests, twice as many cakes, and twice as many gifts. It also meant twice as much time unwrapping the gifts.
That last part did not bother Silas at all, but it seemed to bother Judah a little. He started playing with one gift and then was handed yet another to unwrap. So he had to stop playing and unwrap. Once it was done, he started playing again, sometimes even went back to the first one he had unwrapped, but then he would be handed another. You could almost see his little brain forming the thought, “There is such a thing as too many gifts.”
The next morning even Silas had trouble with the number of gifts. I sat and watched him go from one to the other, back and forth. I wondered if he wasn’t finally realizing, you can only play with one toy at a time.
Have you ever read Proverbs 31 then slumped your shoulders in defeat and thought, “I can’t possibly be that woman?” Take heart. God does not expect you to have every gift this woman has, nor to play with them all at once. Just think for a minute: what does he tell those Corinthians in chapter 12? Some of you have this gift; some of you have that one. Some of you have yet another. Don’t try to be what you are not—just use what I give you the best you can (the Ward version).
Cooking I can handle, most of the time. Bookkeeping I have down pat. But the only things I can do with a needle and thread are sew on a button, take up a hem, and mend a seam. I can’t darn, quilt, crochet or knit. I have made clothes and worn them, but I consigned them to an early death as soon as I had replacements. I have finally learned to master the pressure canner instead of cringing in fear, but I couldn’t decorate one wall much less a whole house—I have no eye for it.
Do you see the point? The Proverbs 31 woman is the ideal. God lists it all, and it gives us some sense of duties in the home. What it doesn’t do is command us to be some sort of Jill-of-all-Trades Renaissance Woman. It just says, this is where the center and purpose of your life and everything you accomplish in it must be—your family. Be the best cook or the best seamstress or the best gardener or the best organizer or the best comforter or the best home businesswoman—or maybe two or three of those--whatever present God has given you to unwrap. Do that, and you have “done what you could.”
For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness, Rom 12:4-8.
Dene Ward
That last part did not bother Silas at all, but it seemed to bother Judah a little. He started playing with one gift and then was handed yet another to unwrap. So he had to stop playing and unwrap. Once it was done, he started playing again, sometimes even went back to the first one he had unwrapped, but then he would be handed another. You could almost see his little brain forming the thought, “There is such a thing as too many gifts.”
The next morning even Silas had trouble with the number of gifts. I sat and watched him go from one to the other, back and forth. I wondered if he wasn’t finally realizing, you can only play with one toy at a time.
Have you ever read Proverbs 31 then slumped your shoulders in defeat and thought, “I can’t possibly be that woman?” Take heart. God does not expect you to have every gift this woman has, nor to play with them all at once. Just think for a minute: what does he tell those Corinthians in chapter 12? Some of you have this gift; some of you have that one. Some of you have yet another. Don’t try to be what you are not—just use what I give you the best you can (the Ward version).
Cooking I can handle, most of the time. Bookkeeping I have down pat. But the only things I can do with a needle and thread are sew on a button, take up a hem, and mend a seam. I can’t darn, quilt, crochet or knit. I have made clothes and worn them, but I consigned them to an early death as soon as I had replacements. I have finally learned to master the pressure canner instead of cringing in fear, but I couldn’t decorate one wall much less a whole house—I have no eye for it.
Do you see the point? The Proverbs 31 woman is the ideal. God lists it all, and it gives us some sense of duties in the home. What it doesn’t do is command us to be some sort of Jill-of-all-Trades Renaissance Woman. It just says, this is where the center and purpose of your life and everything you accomplish in it must be—your family. Be the best cook or the best seamstress or the best gardener or the best organizer or the best comforter or the best home businesswoman—or maybe two or three of those--whatever present God has given you to unwrap. Do that, and you have “done what you could.”
For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness, Rom 12:4-8.
Dene Ward
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