A Heart to Serve

Dannah Gresh: In Proverbs 31, we read about a woman who rises when it’s still dark to meet the needs of her household. Do we really have to do that? Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Here's the thing: godliness is not what time you get up in the morning. Godliness is doing whatever you have to do to make sure that your family's needs are met.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude, for August 13, 2024. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy is in a series called “To Be Praised: The Woman Who Fears the Lord,” walking us through Proverbs 31. To set up today’s topic from Proverbs 31, I want to play you a clip from another podcast in the Revive Our Hearts podcast family. This is The Deep Well with Erin Davis. In this episode, Erin talked about encouraging her boys to develop friendships with other boys who have a heart for Jesus. Erin called these, “battle buddies.” Joy McClain jumped on that idea.

Joy McClain: My oldest son happened to have a pack of battle buddies! 

Erin Davis: Boys like to travel in packs. 

Joy: As a matter of fact, he had an “army”—a basketball team, a football team, whatever you call it. It started with Nerf wars in my backyard.

It’s so simple for a mom: all I had to do was feed them, and that never changed until the day they graduated from high school. So, it started about sixth grade and by the time they were sophomores, juniors in high school, they practically camped at my house! 

As a matter of fact, one Christmas Eve I had to say, “Boys, it is time for you to go home to your other families.” 

Erin:Go home to your mamas! 

Joy: But it’s so true. We were the house (I was the house) that the boys liked to come to. 

I think a lot of it had to do with the property behind the house. It was a great place to play. And maybe it was the food I made—maybe not like you said, the pizza rolls. But I want to tell you, that pack meant everything, and it was because those boys were grounded in God’s Word.

And you know what it cost me? Groceries. That’s something small. Not every boy came from a solid believing home. There was one boy in particular whose dad was incarcerated. He had no siblings. He was a single child, and his mom had to work a lot. I only saw her maybe twice throughout this entire season of our life.

But he became a solid rock believer and just such an integral part of that buddy system! I just want to encourage moms—I don’t care if you don’t have a backyard, I don’t care if you have a little bitty living room—make it a fun place. If groceries are an issue, make some cookies. Boys don’t even care. Salty crackers!

Erin: It could be popcorn! Popcorn is pennies on the dollar!

Joy: Exactly! A jar of peanut butter and some saltine crackers. As long as something is going down the hatch, they’re happy! The thing is, just make it a place where they want to come, where they feel welcome.

Dannah: Now, today we’re not talking about battle buddies. But I do encourage you to check out The Deep Well and listen to that series, “Lies Boys Believe.”

Now, we listened to that clip because Joy and Erin exemplify what we read about in Proverbs 31. Even with limited means, they have a heart to provide for the needs of their household. Specifically, they understand the need to provide food. Here’s Nancy continuing in Proverbs 31.

Nancy: Verses 14 and 15, "She is like the merchant ships." (I will explain that in just a moment. It may not seem complimentary.) Verse 15:

She rises also while it is yet night [or still dark],
And provides food for her household,
And a portion [or tasks] for her maidservants.

Now your husband and your children will be very happy if you take these verses to heart. I have a friend who used to say, when her teenage boys were out of sorts, "Before you deal with them, just feed them. Get something in them and it will look different." It was amazing how often that seemed to be true.

But here's a woman who cares practically to make sure that her family gets fed, that they have balanced and nutritious meals. Now we're looking at a day when women did not have refrigeration so she was having to go out shopping probably every day for the ingredients for every day's meal. Somehow this woman managed to turn something that otherwise would have been mundane and routine and daily into a creative act, into something special.

We see a woman with a heart that's willing to sacrifice and to make an extra effort in order to adequately meet the physical needs of her family. She's like these merchant ships (now that doesn't mean she looks like a ship) it just means like the merchant ships, she goes out. Merchant ships in those days would sometimes go to faraway lands to find things that you couldn't find at home. So they would find these exotic or rare treasures, and then they would bring the treasures back for the benefit of the people who had sent them out.

And so, it's really just a picture of the woman grocery shopping. It's a nice way of saying that she goes out and she finds the necessary merchandise, food and items, and brings them home to prepare meals for her family. She's interested in their health and in their well-being and, as a result, she's willing, if necessary, to scout out the different shops in the neighborhood or in the area to find foods that have quality, that have value. Of course, she is probably working on somewhat of a limited budget, and so she's trying to economize for her family.

That may mean that she goes to the supermarket for one stop, and then she stops at Sam's to buy some bulk items less expensively, and then maybe to the produce stand to find fresh fruits and vegetables that she wasn't able to find at the supermarket. You can just see this woman at the vegetable stand sifting through the vegetables and the fruits looking for the best products. She's trying to stretch a dollar. Maybe she is part of a food co-op. But she comes home with her car filled with bags of groceries, and her family is happy when she does. She gets those groceries inside, and then she's going to be involved in the food preparation.

And that's what we see in verse 15. "She also rises while it's yet night [early in the morning], and provides food for her household and a portion for her maidservants." This is getting a little meddlesome, this part of the passage. There's no question that this woman is an early riser. And she has to be. In those days, the women had to be up long before dawn to prepare the morning meal, which would allow the men to go to work early so that they could come home and rest during the heat, the hottest part of the day.

But she also had to get up early because families in that culture would live mostly on bread and other foods that were made from grains, and she didn't have a supermarket to pick up the loaf of bread and those ready-made foods that we can do today. So, before her family was up, if she was going to have them fed, she was going to have to start her day by grinding the grain, mixing the dough, and then baking these flat bread patties on hot rocks of fire, ashes, whatever.

So she didn't have any option. She had to get up early. In the absence of electricity, she probably wasn't tempted to be up until midnight, so probably they went to bed earlier. She was an early riser with the purpose of preparing and planning ahead to provide for her family. So here's the thing: godliness is not what time you get up in the morning; godliness is doing whatever you have to do to make sure that your family's needs are met.

If you don't have to grind bread, consider that a blessing. Now, if you like to grind bread, consider that a blessing—I'm sure your family does. After tasting the bread that some of you women have made, it's real hard to go back to the store bought stuff. This passage isn't saying you have to grind your own bread. It's not saying you have to set your alarm clock for 3:00 in the morning. It's saying that the woman who has a heart for God and a heart for her family will do what she has to do to make sure their needs are met—in practical areas such as food.

This is a woman who is not slothful. She's disciplined. She lives by priorities. Keep noticing that her priorities are centered around her family and her home. I can't say it enough: this is not a woman who is living for herself. She is living for others.

I remember some years ago a women coming to one of our conferences. One of the things the Lord spoke to her about was so practical, and I hadn't said anything, and I hadn't said anything about this. But as she was developing God's priorities for her life, she realized that something she needed to do was to start getting up early to fix breakfast for her husband.

Now as I recall, her husband got up for work at some very, very early hour of the morning. It had never been her pattern, and apparently something he hadn't made an issue about. He'd get up when she was still in bed. While she was still asleep, he'd go off to work. God began to speak to this woman about her priority as a wife in this particular marriage, that one application of love for her husband, for her, was she needed to start getting up early to fix breakfast for him before he left for work.

Now I'm not going to say that you have to do that. I'm saying ask the Lord, "What will minister to the needs of my family?" "What will minister to the needs of my children? And what time do I need to get up to do that?" And then ask God for grace to get up at that time or to go to bed at night in time to do that in the morning.

 

Now here's a woman who is organized, prepared, she's planned; she's an administrator. And, again, if you don't know how to organize and administer your home affairs, find a woman who has a gift along that line and can help you develop some of these skills.

We see here that she's managing (oh you were waiting for this) the household servants. That's it, I knew she had servants! Yes, she's up there in the morning; she's providing food for her household, but look how she's doing it! She's delegating responsibility to her maidservants. But next time you see your husband, you're going to tell him, "Nancy said I need some servants around this house so I can be a godly woman!"

Well, lest you think you don't have any servants, today,we have tons of servants but they're mostly mechanical. We call them a dishwasher, washer and dryer, kitchen appliances, food processor, blender, vacuum cleaner. I have read that every man, woman, and child in America employs the equivalent of 100 servants through technological devices.

So we do have servants. But you know what we have to do? It's what this woman did. We have to organize them. We have to give them their tasks, their portion, their responsibility and put them to work doing what they were made to do.

Now, as we look at these verses and continue through this passage, I want you to see that in everyday, practical ways, the excellent wife, the virtuous wife, the excellent mother, is giving her family a picture of Christ and of spiritual realities.

You say, "Food preparation is showing my family something about Christ? About spiritual realities?" You bet it is! You're living out parables. You're demonstrating parables of spiritual life to your children as you work with your hands, as you serve in your home.

When you prepare food for your family, you're demonstrating to them that God is a faithful provider.

When you are being quality conscious in the things that you purchase, you're showing your children the excellence of the character of God.

hen you're being orderly, when you get your home put back together after it gets pulled apart, and you're being orderly (and I'm not talking about fanatical, I'm just talking about learning to have a place for things and things getting put back in their place), as you are orderly, you're teaching your children that God is a God of order.

When you clean things up in your home, when you keep a clean home; you're showing your children the importance of purity, of holiness in heart, about being cleaned and washed before God.

When you're disciplined in your own life and habits and schedule and the time you get up and the time you go to bed, according to the way God has directed your family, when you're disciplined, you're teaching your children that the Christian life requires discipline. You can't just stay in bed and become spiritual. It requires effort and cooperation with God's Spirit to develop godly habit patterns and sanctification in our lives.

When you reach out your hands, as we'll see that this virtuous woman does, to the poor and the needy, and you're ministering to the needs of others; you're showing your children the heart of God for those who are poor and needy and oppressed.

So get a vision for your work in your home. And remember as you're cleaning, as you're ironing, as you're sewing, as you're picking up, as you're painting, as you're beautifying your home, as you're making things to make your home attractive, remember that you're painting a picture for your children—a picture of God.

You're demonstrating to your children in ways that penetrate deep into their hearts, the heart of God, the ways of God. And you're increasing the likelihood that your children will grow up to love that God and to want to be like Him.

Thank You, Lord, for the privilege of serving You and of serving those that You have put around us. As You provide food for us, You give us our daily bread, thank You that you allow us in practical ways to prepare meals for our families and even as single women to be involved in ministering through food preparation and work in our homes to bless others.

Lord, I pray for these women who I know want to be women of virtue. I know many of these women are. They want to go further. They want to be all that You made them to be. That's what I want for myself. I pray for them, Lord, that You would give them a sense of purpose, motivation, vision, why they're doing what they're doing. And how You're using their daily work with their hands to bless and minister grace to their husbands, to their children, to others around them.

Lord, may You be pleased with the work of our hands. And in all that we do this day, may we reflect the beauty and the wonder of Your ways. May our lives make those around us thirsty and longing for You. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been helping our hearts grow to see practical needs of those around us, especially those living closest to us.

Nancy’s not done, but a woman named Aileen was listening to Nancy teaching. She shared some examples of the benefit of living out these principles. Let’s listen to what she shared.

Aileen: When my sister and I were born, my mother made the choice to leave her career and stay home with us to raise us. She is the only educated one in our family, yet she stayed home and gave me that example of making that choice to leave her career and stay home. I truly believe that apart from my mother's example, I would not be a worker at home, enjoying caring for my family.

It even goes farther. When my husband and I were in ministry, God called us to go to Africa. After I was there for less than a year, I could reflect and see how the way my mother had raised me by teaching us how to work with our hands at home equipped me to be a successful missionary, even though I never intended to be a missionary. Life in East Africa in the eighties was much like life in America in the fifties where everything was made from scratch. There were very few appliances that made life convenient.

Honesty, when we arrived in Nairobi I thought, We'll be lucky to make it three years here. Nineteen years later we left having loved it. Our kids loved it. It was hard to leave. Even when we got back to the states, my kids continued to want me to make mayonnaise from scratch and biscuits from scratch. I let them know you can buy those things at the store. (laughter)

But it truly was my mother who set me up to be successful in live and to be able to live the life that God had called us to. I give this tribute to her.

Nancy: Does this make you feel spoiled? This is incredible listening to this.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth talking with a listener named Aileen about developing a heart to serve our homes for God’s glory.

As we’ve been hearing about growing in godliness, I want to let you know about a resource from Nancy called Biblical Portrait of Womanhood: Discovering and Living Out God’s Plan for Our Lives. Our mission at Revive Our Hearts is to help women delight in God’s good plan for their womanhood. This booklet articulates that message well, and it’s available to you this month for your gift of any amount. 

It’s how we want to thank you for your support in helping women embrace God’s design. Just request Biblical Portrait of Womanhood with your donation at ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

So today if I can sum up, we’ve heard about: 

• Women who get up early and make bread.
• We’ve heard from a woman who invited groups of boys to her house and fed them whatever she could  . . . even saltine crackers.
• And we heard from a woman who made homemade mayonnaise for her family.

But none of those specifics are the point. The point is to have a heart to serve. That may look different for different women. But would you ask the Lord how He would have you serve your household? Because ultimately this isn’t about the food, it’s about the gospel. And none of us can serve perfectly.

So Nancy’s back with a final thought about why we need the gospel.

Nancy: We've talked about the fact that two things are true of this passage. It gives us a portrait as we've said. One commentator called it a "looking glass" for women and said that we should look into this mirror and see how to dress ourselves.

But as we look at this portrait, as we look in this mirror, we think, I could never be this kind of woman. She's so energetic. She's so capable. She's so talented. She never gets tired. She's always working. She's so skilled. And we can feel real defeated or overwhelmed. I can get tired just looking at this passage on the page, and you're looking at me like you know what I am talking about.

So we said that two things are true that we need to remember about this portrait. The first is that no woman can be like this woman. Left to ourselves, as we are naturally, we will never have the heart, the desire or the ability to look like this portrait.

I mean, our whole culture rejects this portrait for starters. And what we've been talking about runs straight across the grain of the world's way of thinking about what it means to be a woman.

In fact, as I've been teaching these sessions, there have been a few points when I found myself almost having a hard time getting the words out because I know how countercultural these concepts are in today's world.

When we start talking about things like being domestic, about homemaking, about being a keeper at home, the words just kind of want to stick in my throat sometimes because I'm a product in some ways of this thinking that equates a woman's worth or her value with her work outside her home.

And then we talk about a woman coming into a home and focusing as her primary priority on her husband and her children and finding joy through serving others. I mean, this just is not a natural way of thinking. It's not just because of what our culture says, it's because our natural fleshly instincts are for self and not for others.

So when we see a passage that's all about a woman living for others we realize, I can't live this way. I cannot live this way as a woman.  I don't have this kind of heart. And so we've said, "No woman can be this kind of woman!"

But the other thing that gives us hope sounds just the opposite but it's equally true, and that is that any woman can be this woman through the power of the Holy Spirit. If Christ lives in you, then it's no longer you who is trying to live this Christian life which is impossible, it's Christ in you living this life.

And what we've been seeing in this passage, Proverbs chapter 31, is really a portrait of Christ. It's a picture of His heart, His ways, His Spirit, His desires, His way of thinking. As He lives in us, He enables us to live a life that we could never live on our own.

I love that verse in Philippians, chapter 2 that tells us, "It is God who is at work within you, both to will [that is to give you the desire that you wouldn't have naturally] and to obey to do God's good pleasure" (v. 13).  What we're seeing in this chapter is God's good pleasure for us as women.

I can't live this way, but I can live this way because  I have God living in me. He's at work within him giving me the desire, giving me the supernatural ability to live in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. That's why I have to cry out to Him day after day as you do.

Lord, I can't live this life. I can't be a woman of God. I can't walk in accordance with Your will and Your ways. I can't love that mate. I can't love and serve those children as You have commanded me. I can't be diligent and faithful and loyal and all these qualities that we're seeing in this passage to apart from You doing it in me, but by Your grace—and don't you love that word?

You see, when we read this passage we think of the law, the standard, the impossibility of it all. And the law is important. God's standard is important. We need a standard to see that we don't measure up and that we can't measure up.

But God gives us the law to point us to Christ, who is the one who fulfilled the righteousness of the law. That's what grace is all about. God giving us the desire, the power to begin to do that, which we cannot be or do apart from Him.

Dannah: Next time, Nancy’s going to keep going in this series, talking about some practical things like: finances and managing our households well. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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