THINKING…

I have always struggled to remember that trials are not necessarily consequences of something I have done wrong.

I’m still working on overcoming this natural tendency of thought. After all, I’ve entertained it for most of my life.

Loving others as myself, I had naturally assumed that anyone who was facing trials likely had some issue about which God was dealing with them.
YUCK!

An even stranger twist to my brain has been the realization that God's goodness is not necessarily a result of one’s faithfulness.
‘He rains on the just and on the unjust’.

LIGHTBULB!!!

Life is simply NOT about what I think or feel!
That part of me is supposed to be dead...or dying daily at least. We are the Lord's. Should I, the clay, say to the Potter, 'What are you doing?' (Isaiah 29:16, 45:9; Romans 9:20-21, Job 40:2)

To be used of God is my greatest delight.
But I must remember that even this is not necessarily a result of anything I have done ...It is HIS grace... HIS sovereignty.

‘Surrender’
‘Yieldedness’
These words just keep getting deeper in meaning to me.

I think my new favorite verse is this,
"Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know." (Jeremiah 33:3)

I really DO want to have my mind more and more on 'God' things.
I LOVE to see Him work.
I LOVE to be a part of His work.

My Dad’s favorite definition of grace is this,
"...the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life; including gratitude!"

So…
If I am a part of what God is doing on this earth, then I am a vessel of ‘GRACE’.

"...And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
That is why we never give up...For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!
So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever." (2 Corinthians 4:15-18)

BUT…
The things I ‘see’ and ‘feel’ are so LOUD!
I’m a passionate person.
I have passionately tried to be a good ‘Christian’.

For so many years I focused on being a good servant to God.
And I tried to be a good servant for the Lord to my husband.

My ultimate goal was that the Lord might call me ‘precious’, like He did Daniel.

"...Daniel, you are very precious to God, so listen carefully to what I have to say to you. Stand up, for I have been sent to you... Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in heaven. I have come in answer to your prayer." (Daniel 10:11-12 NLT)

I know. I hear some of you saying, ‘But, You are!’ ‘We all are!”
OK, effectually, yes. God would not have become our savior if He didn’t value us.

But, what I really desire is for God to sincerely enjoy me.
I want to be precious ...even beautiful in God's eyes.

Peter suggests what is ‘precious’ and ‘beautiful’ in a woman…
"...the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God."
(1 Peter 3:4)

Hmmm…
…gentle
…quiet

Quiet?

Like…

“Do all things without grumbling and faultfinding and complaining and questioning and doubting,

That you may show yourselves to be …innocent and uncontaminated,
Children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and wicked generation,
Among whom you are seen as bright lights in the [dark] world,
Holding out and offering [to all] the Word of Life.” (Philippians 2:14-16)

I can be ‘innocent’… ‘uncontaminated’… ‘without blemish’?

IF, out of my mouth comes…
…NO grumbling
…NO faultfinding
…NO complaining
…NO questioning.

Hmmm…

“If anyone can control his tongue, it proves that he has perfect control over himself in every other way.” (James 3:2 TLB)

For so many years, I was frustrated between what I thought God wanted for the Hawley family versus what we actually did.
YET… What God wanted from ME had nothing to do with where we lived, my husband's career or other occupations, or whether we had debt.

God wanted a gentle and quiet woman submitted entirely to the destiny and providence of God… minus the anxiety … minus the reasoning.

I collected the following list of “how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful” from context in 1 Peter 2 & 3,

SHE…
Put her trust in God...
Accepted the authority of her husband...
Obeyed her husband, regardless of his disposition...
Called him her master...
Was fearless...
Respectful...
Patiently endured...
And never retaliated when insulted...

NOW, to be a woman like this would be truly BEAUTIFUL!
She would be precious indeed… probably rare.
This is entirely unnatural and also unexpected today, as evidenced by the plethora of ‘woman’ and ‘female’ jokes floating around.
Total renovation from the inside out is the only means to a precious and beautiful woman.
“So repent (change your mind and purpose); turn …to God, that your sins may be erased, that times of refreshing (of reviving with fresh air) may come from the presence of the Lord.”
(Acts 3:19 AMP)

I want to be like a breath of fresh air… YES, INDEED!

"Now ...a woman who ...has placed her hope in God... prays night and day, asking God for His help.
But the woman who lives only for pleasure is spiritually dead even while she lives."
(1 Timothy 5:5-6 NLT)

A woman who lives to please herself is a living DEAD woman?!!! A Zombee!!! Ahhhh…

“For those who are according to the flesh and are controlled by its unholy desires set their minds on and pursue those things which gratify the flesh,
But those who are according to the Spirit and are controlled by the desires of the Spirit set their minds on and seek those things which gratify the [Holy] Spirit.
Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death…
But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever].
That is because the mind of the flesh [with its carnal thoughts and purposes] is hostile to God, for it does not submit itself to God’s Law; indeed it CANNOT.
So then those who are living the life of the flesh [catering to the appetites and impulses of their carnal nature] CANNOT please or satisfy God, OR be acceptable to Him.
(Romans 8:5-8)

This is VERY serious!

"...I WARN you ...keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls."
(1 Peter 2:11)

THAT is what GOD’S will IS concerning ME.
It’s not about MY desires…MY thoughts…MY womanly intuition. This is where faith becomes absolutely necessary!

I AM God’s servant, right? I’m a ‘Christian’…of course I’m God’s servant.

BUT… Jesus came and ‘tweeked’ our understanding of following God. Jesus addressed the ‘heart’ of everything.

Jesus said,
"Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you."
(John 15:15)

SO…

A ‘friend’ knows what his lord and master is about? I should know what my God is about.

What is God ‘about’…concerning me?
Well, He’s all about what I am for my earthly lord, obviously.

SO…
IF, as a friend of God performing God’s design for wives, I am a ‘friend’ to my earthly ‘lord’, how should that look?
I, a wife to Bryan Michael Hawley, should be his submissive servant, right?
Um… Not exactly.

The previous verse implied that a servant just submits and obeys commands.
A servant DOES NOT KNOW what his master is all about.
But a ‘friend-wife’ would concern herself with the doings and goals of her ‘lord’.
Wow!
Just WOW!

I should be my husband’s true friend.

A ‘friend-wife’ should know his needs. She should know what makes HIM happy. She knows what makes HIM sad. She should seeks to satisfy and delight HIM.

I would like to quote here a monologue from William Shakespeare’s ‘Taming of the Shrew’,
(THIS is well worth the effort it will take you to read it)

“Fie, fie, unknit that threat'ning unkind brow
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty,
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee
And for thy maintenance; commits his body
To painful labor both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou li'st warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience--
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace,
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
Whey they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms,
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown.
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot,
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.”

Want more?

Here’s a passage from Sirach 26:1-18,

What’s Sirach?

(FYI: the Apocrypha was considered part of Scripture from the 5th century. It was not separated within the ‘Bible’ until Luther's Bible in 1534. Even today, the Apocrypha is still contained within the Catholic Bible. I, unlike some, believe that God has His true believers within the Catholic denomination as He does in many other Christian denominations. And I also believe there is a lot of unread wisdom in the Apocrypha. One final note, the early Reformers were in agreement that the Apocrypha contained "books proceeding from godly men" and therefore was recommended for reading. The stuff you can raise your eyebrows about is the ‘Pseudepigrapha’. Wikipedia offers this, concerning the Pseudepigrapha, they “are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is represented by a separate author, or a work "whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past."

So here goes…

“Happy the husband of a good wife;
The number of his days will be doubled.
A loyal wife brings joy to her husband,
And he will finish his years in peace.
A good wife is a generous gift bestowed upon him who fears the Lord.
Whether rich or poor, his heart is content,
A smile ever on his face.
There are three things I dread,
And a fourth which terrifies me:
Public slander, the gathering of a mob, and false accusation—all harder to bear than death.
A wife jealous of another wife is heartache and mourning;
Everyone feels the lash of her tongue.
A wicked wife is a chafing yoke;
Taking hold of her is like grasping a scorpion.
A drunken wife arouses great anger, for she does not hide her shame.
By her haughty stare and her eyelids an unchaste wife can be recognized.
Keep a strict watch over an unruly wife, lest, finding an opportunity, she use it;
Watch out for her impudent eye, and do not be surprised if she betrays you:
As a thirsty traveler opens his mouth and drinks from any water nearby,
So she sits down before every tent peg and opens her quiver for every arrow.
A gracious wife delights her husband;
Her thoughtfulness puts flesh on his bones.
A silent wife is a gift from the Lord;
Nothing is worth more than her self-discipline.
A modest wife is a supreme blessing;
No scales can weigh the worth of her chastity.
The sun rising in the Lord’s heavens—the beauty of a good wife in her well-ordered home.
The light which shines above the holy lampstand—a beautiful face on a stately figure.
Golden columns on silver bases—so her shapely legs and steady feet.”

Too deep?
How about some words of wisdom from a country song,

When You Say Nothing At All, by Ronan Keating…

“It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
Try as I may I can never explain
What I hear when you don't say a thing.
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me.
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me wherever I fall.
You say it best, when you say nothing at all.
All day long I can hear people talking out loud.
But when you hold me near you drown out the crowd.
Old Mr. Webster could never define what's been said between your heart and mine
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me.
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me.
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me wherever I fall.
You say it best, when you say nothing at all.”

And so it all comes about in one beautiful circle, as all of God’s balanced nature goes…
It ends with this…

"Ye are my friends, IF ye do whatsoever I command you." (John 15:14)

Amen.
So let it be in me.