Well here I go. This is my first shot at blogging. This first entry is a bit like a first date – awkward and exciting. Wondering if it will be a flop. I’m asking myself, “What will I write about?” Hmmm… “ANYTHING!” Anything that pertains to being a Christ – following wife, mother, servant, daughter, friend or any other hat I decide to put on. Being a woman is a multifaceted thing these days. Why Proverbs 31? Well, it is the most comprehensive list of all the characteristics I would like to grow into.
The text says that a “woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised.” Fearing the Lord. Solomon said fearing the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). After living a carnal life to the max with women, riches and power, Solomon also closed out his life saying this is it. The whole point of everything is to “Fear God and obey His commands” (Eccl.12:13).
Really? Wasn’t the whole point to find my soul-mate, get married, and have kids? Or what about finding a life’s work that I’m passionate about? Could the purpose of my existence be so simple? And why God? Why fear Him? I thought He was all about love, goodness, and positive energy?
God is love (1 John 4). But God is also Most High, Creator, law-giving Father, and Sacrificial Lamb. Who am I to question His ways? A conversation was recorded thousands of years ago between God and a man named Job. Job questioned God. He questioned the essence of who God was. In Job 38-41 God answers for himself why we should fear Him.
Tell me, if you know so much?
Who determined its dimensions…
What supports its foundations,
and who laid its cornerstone
as the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
Who kept the sea inside its boundaries
as it burst from the womb,
and as I clothed it with clouds
and wrapped it in thick darkness?
For I locked it behind barred gates,
limiting its shores.
I said, ‘This far and no farther will you come.
Here your proud waves must stop!”
I wasn’t there when the earth was formed. I have no idea how to even describe gravity let alone discover its origin. I can’t hold oceans in their place. I can’t even keep water from flooding my kitchen ceiling. God deserves my fear because He is everything that I am not. So I will resolve to be a woman who fears the Lord. For choosing that life, I know I will be blessed, and one day I know I will receive my praise. “A woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised.”
So there it is. My first blog entry. Its over. Will there be a second date?
