The Virtuous Woman

(For all those women who have read the description of the Proverbs 31 woman and been incredibly frustrated... this is for you.)
Last year as I was working on my book about the feminine side of God I encountered the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 in an all new light. As I delved into this woman’s character I realized she was not who I had traditionally understood her to be, but was so much more. Since I was writing a book about femininity using the entirety of Scripture I did not have as much time as I would have liked to expound on the virtuous woman directly. The last several months the women of my church have been going through a study on the women of the Bible and one of the chapters is dedicated entirely to the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31. This week we finally arrived at her chapter and I must admit the emptiness of her presentation greatly annoyed me. And so I am compelled to write more about her since I believe we have sorely misunderstood who this woman is and who her image impacts.

My first question, which was not adequately answered was, “Why include this description at all?” The study explained it as a means for women to understand what is desirable to God in a woman and secondly what a man should look for in finding a wife. Both those reasons I happen to agree with but they do not go deep enough and do not answer the most important question – Why? Why does God desire for woman to carry these characteristics? The answer was simple for me in light of the writings I felt inspired to write last year but I have never heard anyone else say them. I will start answering the question by asking a question. In all the history of mankind have you ever seen or known God to exalt or honor characteristics that are not first and foremost His own? The answer is – no! So we must conclude firstly that these are characteristics of God and secondly that they were the motivation behind His design of Eve when He created her in His image in the beginning. With this understanding we must now define these characteristics and search Scripture for their direct application to God. Fortunately we do not have very far to go since King Solomon wrote extensively about the feminine side of God and we find most of it in Proverbs. What I have put together in the following chart is a list of the verses concerning the virtuous woman and then compared them to the correlating verses that speak of the same characteristics in God.





The most clarifying component of this chart is the understanding of why this woman is so difficult to attain or become. If God took all of His feminine goodness and invested it into a physical form, this is what she would look like. I believe this was God’s intent when creating Eve but because of our now fallen nature we look a lot more like Folly than we do this woman Wisdom. And that’s the down and dirty truth of it. We sinned and personified Folly. When God scolded Adam for listening to Eve it was not because men should never listen to women. Adam was scolded because he listened to Folly and not Wisdom. Eve spoke out of a fallen nature and therefore spoke Folly. This carries support throughout Proverbs as Wisdom says over and over, “Listen to my words.” Naturally if you listen to the words of Wisdom it is not wrong, and if a woman is properly personifying Wisdom then she is worthy to be listened to. Where the wrong enters the picture is when you lack the discernment to recognize Wisdom from Folly. If you are not aware of whom Folly is you may find her also in Proverbs. Her name in Hebrew is Ivveleth; I call her “Poison Ivy” for short… how appropriate. She mocks and mimics Chokmah, or Wisdom, twisting and corrupting her character.

The question remains: why include these virtues if they are unattainable? Well… at the time this was written, that was the simple truth; these characteristics, although they were God’s standard, were unattainable. But now we have Christ who is born within us and cultivates godly characteristics and virtues in our lives every day. This woman is no longer beyond our reach but she still takes a lot of time and effort to arrive at and one may only find her through Christ. How many times do you read through the various fruits of the Spirit and not stop and think, “Hey, I could definitely use some more ___________”? The virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 is the same concept. We will always be lacking but through Christ we can attain more and more of her character.

Now we come to the question of who her image impacts. The virtuous woman, being a physical reflection of the femininity God possesses, impacts all things feminine. That means she defines me as a physical woman. She defines the emotions (feminine in relation to the masculine mind) of all mankind. She defines the souls (feminine in relation to the masculine heart) of mankind. She defines even the bride – the Church. And so we must look upon this virtuous woman of Proverbs in a slightly different light now. We must analyze how we as a Church are reflecting upon our groom, Jesus Christ. Can we as a Church say we embody all of these characteristics? Do we clothe our family? Do we open our arms to the needy and poor? Are we good stewards and diligent with our resources? Do our actions cause Christ to be well known and respected at the city gates? If we do not, should we not then be focusing with great intent on being a virtuous bride? Is our goal not for the Spirit to look on us and proclaim, “She is ready. It is time for the groom to approach.” and then take our hand and in one voice make that most precious request, “Come, Lord Jesus.”? It bears some thought. The parting question I ask of anyone who would read this is how can you better incorporate these characteristics into not only the femininity you possess whether it is woman, emotion, or soul but also into the femininity of the bride of Christ – His Church?

The Affirmer and The Accuser

Dedicated to my father on this Father's Day 2009.

Disclaimer: If you have any delusions regarding my perfection, read no further... this could shatter that pedestal, otherwise keep reading.

As most people can relate to in their own lives, my past consists of many adventures both good and bad, feats great and small, and tales murky and clear. All these elements add up to one main pursuit in life - my search for identity.

I recall vividly the year when my life assumed purpose in Christ and oddly enough it was well after conversion and many years into adulthood. The initial struggle I fought with narrowed down to this question, "How much of my past must dictate my present identity and overshadow my future?" Obviously one cannot discount the importance of the past in being a schoolteacher to us. After all, the past is the ONLY element of time that carries in it perfect clarity (ie: hindsight is 20/20). And so the purpose of the past must be to teach, so that with the knowledge accumulated from the past we may consummate that knowledge with the wisdom of the present and give birth to understanding in the future.

Taking into account the significance of the past, I was unsure of what to do with the negative elements. Obviously i can learn from them, but must they identify who I am? The answer is, apart from God, yes the past becomes who I am. But a miraculous transformation takes place when one adds God to the equation of life. As the divine nature is born within us and begins to mature and grow in us, God gives to us a most precious gift - His identity and His past. While my physical past continues to teach me, my identity is no longer defined by it but is defined by the Heavenly Father Himself, as He cultivates Christ within me.

And now we enter into the struggle all mankind faces in realizing identity - the age old battle between the Affirmer and the Accuser. This battle recently played itself out in a very real way for me, much to both my joy and dismay.

During a recent trip to visit my family, my father assumed a blessed and divine role bestowed on all fathers - the affirmer. When this role is exercised in the image of God it affirms those around it. Apart from the image of God it takes on a corrupt nature and turns into the role of the accuser - both roles struggle to identify us.

My father offered me words of affirmation; words that praised my role as a wife and how he had seen me change into a woman who honors and respects her husband even in difficult times and circumstances. He praised my role as a mother and my diligence in simultaneously caring for my children and my own health. He praised my maturity as a daughter of God and exhorted me in continuing to offer to others out of that growth. As he spoke these words I heard the words of the Heavenly Father echoing out of them, "This is my daughter, whom I love. In her I am well pleased." (Matt 3:17). At the time, an element of that relationship escaped me. I forgot the nature of the accuser and his habitual appearance following moments of affirmation, to attempt to incapacitate us through whatever means he can grasp onto to attack our divine identity. (Matt 4:1-11).

But come, he did. The accuser (not my father just for clarification) appeared and began his assault in every aspect recently affirmed. He attacked my role as wife, wielding my past at me, pummeling me again and again with it. He attacked my role as a mother and in the final blows attempted to strip even my identity in Christ from me. And then he was gone. As I lay broken, striped, and ashamed on the proverbial floor, I cried out to God, not understanding what I was to do in light of this clear assault on every fiber of my being. Did the accuser have the right to hurl my past at me in an attempt to undo what good work God was doing in me?

A most miraculous encounter ensued at this point. The Ancient of Days reached down through the ages, weaving His way through my past and came to stand over me. His voice echoed from His Word unfolding an all too familiar conversation to me.

"Daughter, where are your accusers?"

I know this conversation...

"They have gone."

"Then neither do I condemn you."

He called me daughter... relief washed over me as I realized my identity in Him was still intact; that the Great Affirmer's words continued to define who I was. My own father's words again rang clearly in my ears, "You are a good wife, a good mother, and a good daughter." The words of the accuser fell dead to the ground, impotent and puny next to the Giver of all that is good.

I do not resent or hate the vessel of the accuser's choosing. My heart feels compassion and sorrow for the hatred harbored that allows the accuser to manipulate him to his purposes. But discernment allows me to separate the two - to hate the accuser but to love the man. If I cannot forgive the man, then do I not perpetuate a cycle of hatred and sin? And so I forgive.

My words are formed to speak to fathers during this week that commemorates the magnificence of fatherhood; to bring awareness to the divine nature within you that reflects the image of God - the role you carry as fathers to offer identity and affirmation. But my words also carry warning to those who would corrupt this precious gift of God in an attempt to identify through accusation. Choose wisely. Whose nature will you reflect? The Affirmer or the Accuser?

The Spirit and Power of Elijah

“And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17) “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:6)

What does Elijah have to do with it all? This is the question that started it all off. How may Elijah have performed this function of father to son in his own life? Elijah did not have a son… or did he? This is where I began my embargo on this journey to understand “the spirit and power of Elijah” and how it affects us today and more specifically how it affects my generation and our fathers and someday our sons.

My sensitivity to this issue was piqued in February as I studied the increased focus in our present day on the emerging and next generations. Much emphasis is being placed on the need to release young new leaders (a much needed function within the Church) but little to no emphasis (probably due to its over emphasis in previous generations) on the role of the young and new in relationship to their leaders. My view of God is that He is the absolute figure of balance and so when we flush to either extreme we emphasize characteristics that have the potential to destroy in their imbalance. My preparation of this teaching is therefore to formulate a balanced view of the mentor/mentoree relationship and the beauty of its fullness in prosperity when conducted properly in love.

In this journey we must travel back to the days of King Ahab and the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19). The point in time we travel to in particular is after Elijah’s tremendous feat in the face of the nation in opposing the prophets of Baal. Following this particular event, Elijah is overcome by fear and runs for his life. Herein lays Elijah’s greatest failure: in the course of giving into a spirit of fear he also succumbs to a spirit of despair and resolves that his life is over. Elijah is under the impression that he is the only living prophet left and that all the others serving God have been killed and yet he desires to give up. What would have happened if Elijah had been allowed to give up at this point in time? Who would carry on the work of the Lord through prophetic ministry? As is typical of despair it often prompts us to entertain selfish thoughts in the extremes of self preservation or total abandon. Elijah’s situation was no different. First he gave in to the extreme of self preservation and ran and then he gave in to total abandon and lay down to die. It is in this moment of weakness that God confronts Elijah with a “simple, silent, and yet strikingly thundering in its implications” phrase: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” What was Elijah doing? The answer is—nothing! Elijah had given up on a hope and a future and was not investing himself into anything. God’s reply—not acceptable! Go anoint a successor, Elisha (and two others while you’re at it) and start planning for a future. Life does not end with you! That is the essence of what God tells Elijah to do.

Anointing a successor has always been a difficult task for mankind to accomplish. To name a successor is a morbid thought. Naming a successor is admitting one’s own mortality and the fact that you will not always be around. But it removes focus from self and begins a process of investing hope in a future. Kings and leaders all throughout history have taken issue with naming a successor. There are of course fears and dangers associated with this function. It puts into motion a particular relational dynamic that is dependent on the compliance of two parties and involvement thereof. One may choose to invest in the future through the anointing of a successor but the appointee having the gift of free will may also choose not to honor in this sense his “father”. History is chalked full of stories involving sons and military coups, overthrowing of powers and all out abuse from those desiring power. Selecting a successor is a step of faith but one that is necessary for the continuation of life—even spiritual life.

Elijah follows God’s advice and arises to anoint his successor. Elijah seeks out Elisha son of Shaphat and casts his mantle onto Elisha. And thus is fulfilled the first portion of the spirit of Elijah, “to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children”. With the simple act of casting his mantle onto his successor Elijah states his faith in a hope and a future and the furthering of life in the spiritual realm as his “father” heart is turned towards a child—his spiritual son--Elisha. But this is only one half of a beautiful and living relationship God created within man. Elisha plays out the second half of this relationship.

The second half of this dynamic within the mentoring relationship has to do with commitment to ones mentor. This is also a task mankind has struggled with throughout history-the development of patience in attaining maturity. Let us leap forward in time to the moment of Elisha’s release (2 Kings 2). All throughout Elijah and Elisha’s time together, Elisha remains devoted to Elijah and his ministry. Towards the end of Elijah’s life he requests that Elisha leave him but Elisha will not and clings lovingly to his “father” to the very end. In the last moments Elijah asks Elisha what he desires out of their relationship before he is taken and Elisha responds, “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.” (This was not a request of greed but is a request appropriate with the concept of increasing fruitfulness and multiplication of any relationship. If one is not intent on increasing and multiplying then are they really carrying out God’s continual command, from the moment of creation to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to bear fruit?) Elijah responds with this, “Yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise not.” The implications of this statement are great. You see, if Elisha had followed Elijah’s first request to leave him then Elisha would never even have had the opportunity to see Elijah depart let alone receive a double portion of his spirit. The complete release of Elisha into the fullness of his ministry with a double portion of the spirit of Elijah would not happen unless Elisha saw his mentor through to the very moment designated for his “taking up of the mantle”. This is not to say one must wait until a mentor physically dies to see his own ministry start but there is a living and active dynamic in this relationship that is dependent on two parts—one that releases and one that honors and clings into full maturity. As Elisha fulfilled his commitment to Elijah the second portion of the spirit of Elijah was fulfilled, “the hearts of the children (will turn) to their fathers.” As Elijah is taken in a whirlwind we hear a phrase uttered only twice in all of scripture, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” (2 Kings 2:12) This phrase finds its second mention at Elisha’s deathbed as the king of Israel looks upon him with complete honor and respect, mourning the loss of so great a man of God and cries out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” (2 Kings 13:14).

In today’s Church we once again find ourselves faced with a silent, still whisper, “What are you doing here?” To hear this question requires great sensitivity to the voice of God. He does not announce it in a great and powerful wind. He does not ask it in a trembling earthquake. He does not inquire of us in a raging inferno but comes to us calmly and quietly—“What are you doing here?” How will you answer such an inquiry? As a father in the faith will you move with purpose into a hope and future through the naming and throwing of your mantle onto a successor? Will your father heart turn towards the preservation of a spiritual future in your children?

If you are a young and upcoming leader will your heart turn in honor and respect towards the fathers, clinging to them until you have reached full maturity and release? Will all of your being cry out in love at the moment of your release, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” The success of the spirit and the power of Elijah is dependent on the compliance and fulfillment of both parties in this relationship.

We are faced also with a tragic factor perpetuated by society but not always recognized as so heavily impacting the Church and it is this: In the next several years 90 million “fathers” within our nation are moving into a phase of retirement. This is the baby boomer generation. The magnitude of their presence would not seem so impending if we could in some manner offer them children in increasing measure, but alas that is not possible. You see, 50 million of their children were never born. Over half of the fruitfulness of that generation is missing and so the dynamic of the mentoring relationship is widely offset and imbalanced. This is not to say that the anointing and release of new leaders cannot happen, it is merely to make us aware of the challenges we face. The younger generations have fallen into a category that qualifies as a minority and so we often find it difficult to make our voices heard in our appeal to be released into ministerial fullness. But I strongly believe a solution is available. I move that we pray for a fresh outpouring of the spirit and power of Elijah onto our generation. That in spite of the dysfunction we may have ignorantly perpetuated on our world we be allowed to emerge victorious with a renewed passion between the fathers and the children; that we may once again turn our hearts towards a hope and a future.

Since I do not want to end on a negative note I will give first the consequence of not instituting this dynamic relationship but follow it up with a tremendous word of hope. The consequence states itself in Malachi’s prophesy, “…or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:6) We are in the process of experiencing this curse right now because we did not develop a love for our children or a love for our fathers; we succumbed to a spirit of self preservation instead. Both parties jerked in a relentless game of tug-o-war to see who would prevail and now we suffer the curse on not just physical prosperity but spiritual prosperity. The hope I offer is in this suggestion: the spirit and power of Elijah precedes the coming of the Word of God. If it is truly our desire to see the return of the Word of God both spiritually through renewed understanding and physically in the flesh, then we will take seriously this spirit that perfectly prepares us for the Lord and ushers in that wonderful and blessed presence to our midst.

“Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?” (2 Kings 2) Fathers cast your mantles!

“As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you…My father! My father!” (2 Kings 2) Sons cling to your fathers in honor and respect!