A Proverbs 31 mom seeks Gospel not glamour.
Moms are on the front lines of living out the implications of the gospel in the daily and ordinary routine of life. Most of us do not have too many mountaintop moments in our lives.
Our spiritual battles rarely take place on platforms with thousands watching. Most often, they take place in kitchens, backyards and office cubicles.
Most of us will be role players in our lives, not superstars. Mothers model for their children how to live the 98 percent of our lives to the glory of God. This is indispensable gospel ministry to children. Moms who fear the Lord train children to live with gospel joy and intentionality while performing countless tasks for which no one applauds.
One of the best theologians I know is multivocational. She is involved in meal services, interior decorating, supervision, custodial work, mechanical work, nursing, conflict resolution, interpersonal relations management, money management, continuing education, career planning, counseling and is on the clock in these locations 24 hours a day.
While at the same time teaching theology and the gospel on all cognitive levels of difficulty and allowing endless follow-up questions of “Why?” Her vocation to me, and our eight children, is not glamorous, but it is strategic for the sake of the gospel in the Kingdom of Christ. Many women have done excellently, but to me, Judi surpasses them all (Prov 31:29).
It is tragic when a woman has the opportunity to be involved in what is satisfying and eternal and spends her time despising it and wishing for what is superficial and deceptive. This is the nature of the warning in Proverbs 31:30, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”
The anti-Proverbs 31 mom is not one who is aware of her own inadequacy, struggling with kids, time management and household management, not knowing how she’s going to get everything done. The anti-Proverbs 31 mom is the one who looks at the list in Proverbs 31.10-31″ data-version=”ab” data-purpose=”bible-reference”>Proverbs 31:10-31, abstracted from the gospel, and sees a performance check-list to prove her superiority as a wife and mother.
It is also the woman who defines her significance based on the world standards. She may be busy performing her role as a wife and mother but she internally despises it, thinking this kind of ordinary, mundane stuff can’t have any real purpose. She spends her life thinking, “If only … .” Her daily wishing spiritualizes her daily purposelessness and allows her to fantasize about the gospel difference and influence she could make, if only she was less busy and had a more glamorous platform.
It is the same logic that hissed in the Garden of Eden, “Did God actually say?” (Gen 3:1), if only you would take and eat your “eyes will be opened” (Gen 3:5) and then your life will be significant. Competent supermoms serve the purposes of the evil one just as readily as incompetent ones as long as they do not fear the Lord.
But the mom who fears the Lord, believing there is gospel purpose in all she does, who looks to Christ in her daily struggles and her readily apparent inadequacies, is an effective gospel warrior, rightly praised in the Kingdom of Christ.
