Oh boy. I am really excited to be sharing my heart with you in this post on “Becoming Mrs. Right!” We set the stage in previous posts in this series in discussing God’s emphasis on holiness and purity, on waiting for Mr. Right, and on what to look for in Mr. Right (parts one and two). Today, I am really excited to dig into “Becoming Mrs. Right.”
You know that laundry list of items in the posts on “Have I Found Mr. Right?” parts 1 and 2? Well, God’s standards are for women as well, so we might as well go back and re-read those and ask God to apply them to our own hearts and lives! There are, however, some specifics I’d like to talk about to encourage you in becoming a woman who will bring God glory, specifically in respect to your role as wife to Mr. Right.
Gratitude and the Gospel
We talked here about the foundation of the gospel in honoring God in dating and in relationships. However, it cannot be re-emphasized enough! — Christ Jesus died for our sins. He bought us and claimed us with His blood, and we live now for His glory.
Let me encourage you to daily continue to live your life this gospel-way:
As you dwell on Christ, His character, His love, His gift of Himself, His death on your behalf, His triumphant resurrection….let these truths seep and meld into your heart and mind, molding a heart and life of gratitude that is an outpouring of the gospel. This gratitude, thank-you-God living is a way of life that gives birth to creating a warm and welcoming home that is always rejoicing, always full, always giving, always loving. In sickness and health, sorrow and death and pain, birth and new life and new beginnings…this gratitude and thankful living is an offering of yourself and your life to your Redeemer as well as a tremendous blessing to your husband-and-family-to-be. Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience writes extensively on this. What a blessing her writing and work have been to me in this area of my life.
Dear friends, if God calls you to marry or if God calls you to live as a single woman indefinitely, this life of gospel-induced-gratitude-living is an offering up of sacrifice to God in faith and trust. Love God and love others, serving them with a life and a home infused with the blessing of grateful living.
Not Amazed
God will work in your heart, Mrs. Right, to become a courageous woman — a woman not amazed. Your husband may never be commanded by God to leave all that he has ever known, his country, his family, and his father’s house, and go to the land of Canaan. You may not be sent by your husband into both the harem of Pharaoh and the harem of the king of Gerar because of your beauty and your husband’s heart of fear. Your husband may never kiss you good-bye only to head to war against 4 kings banded together who have captured your nephew and his family. You may never know the womb of barreness, and most likely you will not be called to give birth to a child when you are in your 90’s! God may not demand the sacrifice of your son, your only son, when he is a very young man. (Genesis 12-22)
But, you can be a Sarah. You can be a courageous woman who fears God. You can do what is right, trusting in God without amazement — without fear. (1 Peter 3:1-6) You are called to respect and obey your husband. You must be very careful who you marry, but when you do marry, trust God and obey your husband. Be a daughter of Sarah with a gentle and quiet spirit — a spirit quieted because it trusts and rests in the Lord without fear and without shock at the path in which you are called to walk. A gentle spirit that does not strive and wildly flail at the will of God and the leadership of your husband. The spirit of this woman is precious in the sight of God.
Created to Be a Help Suitable
God created Eve to be a help suitable to her husband. You are not called to submit to “men” in general (although you are called to honor men who are in roles of service and authority in the church, etc.), but rather you are called to submit to your own husband. By refusing to be obedient to your own husband, you may cause the word of God to be blasphemed (Titus 2:5).
So, young single friend, ask God to make you a help suitable to the man you will marry. You will be his friend and lover (Song of Solomon 5:16), the one who lifts him up when he falls, the one who lies with him to keep him warm, and the one who stands strong with him against the enemy. God will join you in a three-fold cord that is not intended to ever be separated before death. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)
There are many aspects of being a suitable helper on which I could write, but I want to touch on just one here: work. A helping wife is a working wife. Proverbs says that the virtuous wife “willingly works with her hands.” Our culture and our own tendencies drive us to look for ways to do less work. What is it that they say? A young woman spends the first 25 years of her life wondering who it is she’ll marry, and she spends the next 25 years of her life wondering what she’ll serve for supper. 😉 Or, as Priscilla Shirer said once at a conference I attended: She’ll spend the rest of her life trying to figure out just one more way to cook chicken!
It took me several years (yes, years!) to surrender to the Lord that my daily service to Him was to be one of routine. As a married woman, I have worked outside the home both full-time and part-time, and right now I am at home full-time. Through each of these periods, I have struggled to see “housework” and cooking and chatting with my husband at the supper table as real spiritual, gospel work. I wanted to DO. I wanted to GO. But, God has called me to BE where I am — to serve here, to love here, to work here.
Read through Proverbs 31:10-31, and you’ll be amazed at the references to this virtuous woman’s feeding her family, clothing her family, and her general care for her home. This is not menial work. It is kingdom work if it is a sacrifice offered up daily in thanksgiving to God and consumed by God. Be commited to working to serve your husband — your work is an offering up of your life in sacrifice to God!
The Heart of Her Husband Trusts in Her
Proverbs 31 is stuffed full of so many truths for “Becoming Mrs. Right,” but I want to touch on this one for now:
“The heart of her husband safely trusts her; so he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.”
The chapter goes on to discuss many of the ways that this virtuous wife does good to her husband, but I want to focus here on how her husband can trust her.
..Her husband knows that she will follow him to the ends of the earth….or stay put in a tiny house in suburbanville for 50 years.
..Her husband knows that she fears God and will only and always give her love to him — she will be faithful and pure to her marriage vows.
..Her husband will not be ridiculed by her or be the brunt of her jokes, either at home or in public.
..Her husband will be able to dream and talk with her, because she will stop what she is doing, stop giving advice, stop interjecting her own mile-a-minute thoughts….and listen to him. She will hear him out and respect his ideas and desires.
..She will not dishonor her husband by her lack of discretion and taste in her language, clothing, or attitudes.
..Her husband knows that she brings him before the throne of grace daily, seeking God on his behalf and on behalf of their family and marriage.
..Her husband knows that she is for him.
Friend, may I close out this series by encouraging you to trust in the Lord?? Whether you’re looking for Mr. Right and he seems very distant on the horizon (maybe even invisible at this point!), or you are seeking to serve God in the relationship in which you are involved, or you are seeking to determine whether or not a young man is Mr. Right, trust in the Lord. Pray, read His word, stay in fellowship with other Christians. Do not “muster” the energy and courage to serve God on your own. Rest in Him and wait for Him as you seek His will on Mr. Right…and as you seek Him in becoming Mrs. Right. Again, dear girl…. God. Is. Able.
“But as it is written: Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9
with much love,
<3, amanda
Resources and Links
“The deepest root of Christian womanhood is hope in God..” Find this teaching by John Piper here.
One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp.
Loving Your Future Husband, by Leslie Ludy.
And, links to our complete series on Finding Mr. Right:
Mr. Right Is Taking His Time: What’s a Single Christian Woman to Do?
Honoring God in the Dating Relationship
Submission to your “calling”(error in my previous reply)
Wow thank you amanda its way back since you wrote this but thank the good Lord who started His tremendous work in you and is faithful enough to carry it on for His purposes it the day of Christ return. Literally meanin this post and blog will still reign hundreds of generations to come. Thank you Amanda for you submission to your and may the good LORD add you to his Hall of Faith.Amen!
Hi Amanda. Thank you for being used by God to write this incredible post. I want to read more from the resources you linked but the youtube video by John Piper is private. Is there another link I can have access to?
Chenge, Thank you so much for letting me know that the link to the youtube video was broken. This is the sermon from which that clip was found: http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-beautiful-faith-of-fearless-submission I have changed the link above, too, so I appreciate your help! I hope that the sermon is a real encouragement to you. ♥
I’m new in Christ and am desperately reading up on all the ways that I can be the woman God wants me to be, and I thank you for writing this blog because many of the things you write here have spoken to me. However, I am a bit perplexed by Sarah’s characterization here, I have never viewed Sarah as a woman of faith or driven by her faith to trust the Lord and his promises. She not only submitted a maid servant to her husband as her own solution to solving her personal strife–rather than turning to the Lord–but she also laughed in the faces of the Angels who told her she’d be a mother. So I am a bit curious and mystified as to why we should look to Sarah as a representation of what it means to be a woman of faith?
I LOVE your question! You are exactly right — Sarah made a mess of things, especially regarding Hagar. And she did laugh at the news of God’s promise, and then she lied about having laughed because she was afraid!
The reason I call her a woman of faith is because of what is written about her in Hebrews 11 and also 1 Peter 3. Hebrews 11 is one of the most amazing chapters in scripture to me. It’s often referred to as the “Hall of Faith,” but when you dig a little deeper into the characters listed, you start to ask yourself, “How did he get in there? What’s she doing in there?!” Noah is listed there (and remember he ended up drunk and naked after God’s bringing him through The Flood); Abraham is in there (the one who listened to Sarah and took Hagar in what seems to me an attempt to accomplish God’s will in the flesh rather than waiting on God); David is in there (murderer and adulterer); and you could go on and on with many of the characters listed..
However, in Hebrews 11 we are “let in” to see what God was working in Sarah’s heart, and it says in verse 11, “By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged Him faithful who had promised.” Like her husband Abraham, she believed God, and it was credited to her as righteousness (see Romans 4). In the same way that your good works are not what has made you new in Christ, but only that you believed God and He saved you, in the same way, Sarah’s works (“good” or bad) are not why she is listed in the “Hall of Faith.” She is listed here because, although sinner and doubter, she looked in faith to God and trusted Him. And the same is true with Noah, Abraham, David, and you and me.
And so, although Genesis does not record her faith like the New Testament reveals, we can live SO ENCOURAGED that God is not looking for women who WORK and don’t mess up, but women who BELIEVE, because, without faith, it is impossible to please God. And then, as you trust God and grow in your faith, HE will work it in you to walk in the good works that He prepared for you beforehand (Ephesians 2:8-10). In Him is found abundant mercy and forgiveness and help, and He will accomplish His good purposes through you, and then He receives all praise and honor for what He does in your life.
(I also refer some to Sarah in this article about my precious grandmother who is already with the Lord: http://bit.ly/1MUcVuL)
I am so honored that you have been reading through some of the blog here, and I really appreciate your taking time to ask me about Sarah and her faith. If you are new to Bible study and hungry to grow, I would recommend Kay Arthur’s book, “Lord, Teach Me to Study the Bible in 28 Days.” It’s simple and straightforward and really helped set me on the path to digging deeper into God’s word and knowing Him through it. I’m praying for you this morning and really grateful for God’s work in your life. <3