What did you do yesterday morning? Let me guess: Was it pretty much the same as last Sunday and the one before that? I thought so.
Maybe you prepped food and house for afternoon hospitality, ironed your husband’s pants and prayed for his sermon, got yourself and the kids ready, drove the family to church by yourself (barely making it in time) and only heard half the sermon in the nursing mom’s room.
Or perhaps you drove your teenagers early to the meeting to serve, helped your husband come up with a last minute sermon illustration, greeted newcomers before church and stayed late to pray and counsel. Then you cared for an exhausted (and maybe even discouraged) husband all afternoon.
Or, maybe you were home with sick kids…for the third week in a row.
Just another ordinary Sunday in the life of a pastor’s wife. But in the upside-down world of Scripture, the ordinary is extraordinary. Consider these words from Proverbs 31:11:
“The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.”
This verse is “remarkable” insists author Bruce Waltke, and he explains why:
“The statement, his heart trusts in her, which entails that his well-being stands or falls on her reliability, is remarkable. Outside of this text and Judg. 20:36, Scripture condemns trust in anyone or anything apart from God/the LORD…The present exception elevates the valiant wife, who herself fears the LORD, to the highest level of spiritual and physical competence. … Verse B presents the cause of his trust: he does not lack anything necessary. The surprising object, spoil, a military metaphor, implies that the woman has to win essentials like food and clothing through strategy, timely strength, and risk in this fallen world.”.
—Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 15-31 (Eerdmans 2005), pp. 521-522 (HT: Tony Reinke)
Remarkable indeed! Our “reliability” can be the God-ordained bedrock of our husband’s well-being. Reminds me of the pastor who thanked his wife for serving him for over twenty years of Sundays—alone with the kids and without complaint. That’s God-like reliability a husband’s heart can trust in. That’s reliability I want to imitate.
As Scripture sees it, a God-fearing wife’s “valiant” faithfulness constitutes “the highest level of spiritual and physical competence.” This ennobles all those mundane tasks of wifely service: the laundry, the ironing, the grocery shopping, the cooking, the bargain hunting, the budgeting, the hospitality, the counseling, the faithful encouragement, the gracious correction, the consistent affection, the God-given wisdom. It encourages us to persevere, so that through “strategy, timely strength, and risk in this fallen world” our husband has no lack of gain.
Of course this task is not only noble and inspiring but daunting. That’s why we must rely on the only Reliable One: Almighty God. We must look to His Son whose reliable righteousness answers for all our failures. We must rely on the Holy Spirit’s perfect power for our weakness. We must trust in the gracious promises of our Heavenly Father which never fail.
That’s reliability a pastor’s wife’s heart can trust in.
