Role Models of America
The Pro31 Woman
Lesson 8
Proverbs 31:23
23Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.
The Proverbs 31 woman has a image in her mind of her husband. And she sees him as a leader. He is the man in charge and she expects him to lead ahead in the family. Both spiritually and naturally the godly wife desires her husband to be in charge, and not only in charge at home. She has learned that to help her husband be all he can be, she must be an encouragement to him.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. - John Quincy Adams
She is a wise woman if she can learn to promote her husband. Helping him to dream more, requires that she is a positive instead of a negative to him. Her words can build up and help to enthuse his faith and belief that he can attain new heights in life. She can speak blessing into him and remove the harmful words of others by her powerful interception of his belief systems.
Proverbs describes a leader as the man who is known in the gates. What would the gates signify? Now the gates of a city were very important as it determined who could come inside the city and who would be kept outside the city. The gates were protective and discriminating in removing criminals, or watching to see who was coming in as in spies from other territories. The gates could be shut to protect the citizens of those within. To be known in the gates would be a prized place of power for they had the control of what and who was coming and going. To be known would be to be in charge. In other words her husband was in charge as a leader over the lives of others.
This in today’s world would definitely mean that he was a leader, a man over men. His responsibilities includes the lives of many others beside his own wife and family. His abilities had brought him into positions of authority and she respects this.
· She understands. Respects his long hours, and skilled labor in protecting, building, restoring and enhancing the gates of leadership.
· Publicly – she tells others of his gifting, and influences them to pay attention and to honor his skills.
· Privately- she praises him when alone with him and encourages him with her positive words of wisdom.
· She celebrates him internally in the fact of she knows she is married to someone of great value in the lives of many people.
· She accepts his position of worth with others and does not resent his sacrifices of time with her.
· She carried herself with wisdom because of his position. She does not allow herself or her children to draw attention in ways that would compromise his standing in the community.
· She promotes his cause as her own. She has accepted his calling in life as her own and has cast her strength in with him to help carry the responsibilities of leadership.
………’when he sitteth among the elders of the land’.
She knows he will sit with the great people of the nation. She knows he will be important and his skills will be noticed and needed. So she has prepared herself and looked ahead to see …..
· WHEN he arrives at his full potential as a man.
· WHEN he is fully experienced and skilled.
· WHEN he gets to the fullness of life in mental maturity.
· WHEN he is accepted and one of the wise leaders – he will sit with the elders of the land.
She knows what is coming toward him and readies herself to be at his side when his ‘ship comes in’.
It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed. - Napoleon Hill
This requires much sacrifice on her part.
1. To be willing to give up hours of his attention, and his personal energy.
2. To know that she is not the sole person in his life, but she has recognizes and prizes the fact that he will be important and she will be standing beside him when he sits among the elders in the land.
3. Her foresight allows her to ignore the present and look to the future. It requires her many times to forget the lost details and see the big entire picture.
4. The Proverbs woman is key to his arrival and his received potentials assisted by her words of wisdom.
A wise woman builds up her house, but a foolish one tears it down with her words.
She knows that for him to succeed, she must help. She can’t go with him every hour, because of her own works at hand, but she can pray daily for him. So her prayers are full of petitions for his needs and her eyes are fixed on God’s help for her husband.
The wise woman that has this settled in her mind, will remind her children when he has to miss an event. Will remind the family when they complain about his lack of time for them. She will go to great lengths to support him and his vision – thus being the Proverbs wife will help others to understand his passion and become supportive also.
But if she chooses to take a negative stand about her husband and her focus is upon his faults, he will not be able to lead freely not will she enjoy the fruits of a successful fulfilled man. She can easily see his faults, which man does not have them? Or in truth which woman does not have them as well?
Negative thoughts breed doubt. And doubt removes faith. And without faith no mountain will ever be scaled, nor lofty height ever attained. So the Proverbs woman has determined to set her mind on that which is of faith in her belief and support of his strengths and not his weaknesses. This direct decision to look to the higher not only will affect her, but also the lives of her children. Helping children to see the big picture enlarges them in their own minds for their own futures as well.
Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts. ~Charles Dickens
Learning to trust God’s plans for you through the works and destiny of your husband will bring fulfillment in the daily duties of the supportive work of a wife.
Remember the day when he finally sets in the gates …… you will be the woman beside him. Being a Proverbs 31 woman ensures this promise.
Written by Gayla Holley
All Rights Reserved 2007