Find an Excellent Wife

“¹⁰An excellent wife who can find?

She is far more precious than jewels.”

— Proverbs 31:10 (ESV)

A bit challenging for sure to find an excellent wife. How can we know?

Finding an excellent wife is something that all of us are wanting. I know that I found one in Lori. As you look further into verses 10-31 of Proverbs 31, we see the qualities that make an excellent wife and Lori fulfills them.

You see it is about devotion to the LORD and to the husband and the household that make her excellent. Not that she is the crown jewel of physical beauty to others in the community. It is not that everyone sees her and some trophy at my side. It is not that she is at the forefront of every event or organization. It is simply her devotion to God, family, and home. Lori is all of those things and I tell people all the time that I am spoiled by her and having her as my wife.

We find our excellent wife by looking in the right places to start. We can find her in the house of the LORD. We can find her following in the patterns of her mother. We can find her actions as she is growing up. She is out there waiting for us, we only have to go looking for her.

I remember hearing growing up that I was the kind of man to marry, not to date. I was thoughtful and caring and measured. Not exciting or risky. I see the excellent wife as having similar qualities. She is the one who puts others before herself. She is more concerned with consistency and contentment than the thrill of what could be. She has beauty, beauty found in her love and care and devotion. These are the things of the excellent wife and when you look at the verses of Proverbs 31 this is what you will find.

Finding an excellent wife is not hard, it is just something that we have to seek. It is easy to look for a wife, but it takes patience, determination, conviction to find the excellent wife. We have to know where to look and what to look for and not just see what is on the outside. We can find the excellent wife when we look where God directs.

What is an excellent wife to you? Are you looking for the physical trophy wife to hang on your arm? What if you were to find the excellent wife that God has for you, the one who is caring and measured and is devoted to Him, you, and the household?

Wife and All Her Beauty

I know that my wife is beautiful. I am in awe when I see her. We have a picture of the two of us on our wedding day where I look completely captivated by her. Thinking of that now, I remember being teased a bit about it as not being a serious picture. I don’t think that is the case at all. I see it now as a picture of how I should see her. Radiant and glorious to behold.

We have seen in the scriptures that Christ is the head of the church. And now we see that the New Jerusalem is the Bride and Wife of the Christ.

“⁹Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.’” – Revelation 21:9 (ESV)

I know that it does not say that explicitly in the verse above, but the full passage is titled “The New Jerusalem” in my ESV Bible. The angel does not say to introduce you to the Bride, but to “show you the Bride”. The angel is showing John around the city. Showing him her beauty and grandeur.

“²And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” – Revelation 21:2 (ESV)

Make no mistake, the “Bride” of Christ is beautiful. In the passage that is Revelation 21:9-27 we find the description of what the New Jerusalem will be like. The sheer size of her, the ornate structures. The jewel adorned walls and foundations. The gold streets. The radiance of her sight is almost unimaginable. She is the most beautiful ever seen.

I take this description of the New Jerusalem and translate that to the beauty of my wife. Lori may not be a greatly ornate structure, or be adorned in jewels, or have gold streets, but she is radiant and the most beautiful to me. Isn’t that how we should see our wife, as the most beautiful sight seen?

“³Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— ⁴but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. ⁵For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, ⁶as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.” – 1 Peter 3:1-6 (ESV)

Just as the beauty of the New Jerusalem is for Christ, the beauty of our wife is for us to see and for the world to recognize. She is for us. We see her in her true beauty as presented by God. She is to be beautiful to us and to God. And this is the true beauty of your wife.

What is the beauty of your wife? Is she there for all the world to see as beautiful? What if she is to be beautiful to you in your sight and for God as the New Jerusalem is beautiful for Christ?

Love the Beauty of Your Wife

Lori and I have been married for 29 years, which means that in that time we have changed a lot. We got married. We grew older. We became parents with a house full with our boys. We celebrated our boys movement out of our home on to there own lives. We are now back to where we started with just the two of us. It is time to get on with the love we have for one another that started all those years ago. And it is up to me.

“¹⁸Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

¹⁹a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;

be intoxicated always in her love.”

— Proverbs 5:18-19 (ESV)

The woman I married is there still. She may have changed physically, but so have I. She is still as lovely today as she was all those years ago. I have to remember that God gave me her for the balance of our lifetime, not for just a short while. She is lovely and intoxicating and I will always love her as the woman God gave to me.

When you see your wife, see her as you did when you fell in love with her. She was grandiose then as she took your breath away and she is grandiose now as you continue trying to catch the breath she took away.

The passage I read this morning is titled in my ESV Bible; “Warning Against Adultery”. The quickest way to wander down the path of adultery is to seek out that which seems to have been lost. The beauty of your wife is what you seem to have lost. But, that beauty is not gone. It is there still, it is that we have to think to that which caused to fall in love in the first place. That woman never left. She may feel distant, but couldn’t that be due to our lack of seeing her as we did then.

Look back to when you fell in love with your wife. See the beauty in her face. See the beauty in her body. Love her again for who she is and was. She is still there in front of you just as she was then.

What is it that drew you to your wife? Are you somehow seeing that as gone? What if you were to look to when you fell in love with her and see her today for the beauty she has since that day?

“The Word of God Stands Forever”

The title of my writing this morning comes directly from my English Standard Version (ESV) Bible. Three verses in Isaiah to denote the eternity of the LORD.

“⁶A voice says, “Cry!”

And I said, “What shall I cry?”

All flesh is grass,

and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

⁷The grass withers, the flower fades

when the breath of the Lord blows on it;

surely the people are grass.

⁸The grass withers, the flower fades,

but the word of our God will stand forever.”

— Isaiah 40:6-8 (ESV)

No matter the beauty that comes from or that is you and me, the LORD will be more. What I see in the verses are beautiful meadows of soft green grass. There are flowers standing just above the grass to bring color and even more beauty to the eye. I imagine seeing cars stopped on the side of the road with moms, dads, and children in this field taking family photos together and enjoying the beauty and wonder that is being displayed.

Yet, this is only during a small window of time and then it is gone. Withered by the weather and the new season that has come. The green grass is now a shade of brown or withered away altogether. The flowers have lost their petals and turned to nothing. Gone from the eye to see and body to experience. It has move on to the next season and is just a memory caught in the mind or in the photos taken.

Although all of the beauty that is the meadow of grass and flowers is gone, there is one that is always there regardless of the season. There is one standing tall for all to experience. That is our LORD. His Word is always before us and guides the current and next season. Just as I am in His word this morning I am to be in His Word every morning. From God’s Word I will find the beauty that is constant and forever. His Word never fades and never turns. The Word of the LORD is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and I can stand high on its strength and beauty.

Too often we find ourselves looking other places when what is found in our eyes fade away. We tend to focus on that beauty in our eyes and miss the beauty in our hearts. The beauty of God’s Word, never withers and fades and is always and forever standing tall in our heart.

Where are you turning your eyes? Are you looking to the grass and flowers expecting them to be there always? What if you were to turn to your heart instead to find the beauty in the Word of God, as it is there always and forever?