MERRY MONDAY BY PARRIS
Proverbs 31:25: “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and SHE LAUGHS AT THE TIME TO COME”
I just returned from our annual women’s retreat entitled: “SHE”
We had decided months before that we would go over Proverbs 31. I had felt that that “lady wisdom” of late has become nothing sort of a “Pinterest sermon”. No, we didn’t preach about sewing circles or cooking….
Hudson Taylor said, “It is in the path of obedience and self-denying service that God reveals Himself most intimately to His children. When it costs most we find the greatest joy. We find the darkest hour the brightest and the greatest loss the highest gain. While the sorrow is short-lived and will soon pass away, the joy is far more exceeding, and it is eternal.”
When we allow the “He” to reign the “she” can laugh because He laughs. For God’s people, his laughter over his enemies gives great comfort. God laughs to dispel our fears. God laughs to remind us no purpose of his can be stopped. And we can laugh too knowing he does all things well and according to his plan. What a woman of freedom! We know that CHRIST LAUGHED! Who for the joy set before him-He claimed to be joyful because of God’s purposes. In Luke 10:21, Jesus “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit” because the Father had revealed to “little children” the salvation that comes through his victory over the devil. He also said, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh” (Luke 6:21).
Hudson Taylor again quotes this: “Let us give up our work, our thoughts, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into His hand, and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about, or to make trouble about. Jesus is our strength, and what we cannot do or bear, He can both do and bear in us. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize the Lord is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest positions He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult, His grace is sufficient. The real secret of an unsatisfied life lies too often in an unsurrendered will.”
Will you laugh? Allow the He in you to become the She that laughs in time to come. Once we know our Bible, we can have a theology that teaches of a sovereign God who makes promises, knows his promises to be with her, no matter what. Like Abraham and Sarah, we are on a spiritual journey from the laughter of unbelief (Genesis 17:17; 18:12–15) to the laughter of faith (Genesis 21:1–7).
“And you women are Sarah’s children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening” (1 Peter 3:6). LOL!