To Encourage You

1 Peter 3:1-4 “Wives . . . let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.”

One of the greatest blessings of my life is that I have a wife that loves the Lord.  It was one of the things that marked her from the first moment I met her.  She was different from most other women I knew.  At the time, although I had been a believer for many years, I was an infant in the faith. I hadn’t grown.  I hadn’t applied myself to the Word of God and my life was largely indistinguishable from that of my unbelieving friends.  By the grace of God, my eyes were opened to the fact that I wasn’t anywhere close to where I should have been spiritually, and I started to find my way back to Him by reading His Word, prayer, and attending church. That’s where I met my wife.  I was drawn to her both by the fact that she was beautiful on the outside, but more than that, I saw that she was beautiful on the inside. She had a deep and strong faith, and that was evident to me by the gentle and quiet spirit that marked her.  It’s the kind of spirit God says a wife should possess as we see in the passage from 1 Peter 3 above.  By God’s grace this godly woman became my wife, and over the years the gentle and quiet spirit I observed when I first met her has only manifested itself more and more.  

You see, it is one thing to have a gentle and quiet spirit when things are going well and all is right in the world. It is another thing to manifest these traits when things are spinning out of control and the world around us is anything but well and right.  But it has been in those moments – and we’ve definitely had them in our 45 years together – that I’ve seen these precious attributes come to the fore. It’s a supernatural thing. As such, Peter tells us it’s an imperishable thing. It’s an inner beauty that doesn’t depend on the kind of makeup one wears or the clothing a woman covers herself with.  It’s so much more wonderful than outer adornment. It’s the kind of adorning that is most precious to God.  It’s such an awesome thing, for anything that is precious in God’s sight is much more precious even than gold. It’s an adorning that only God can give a person.  It’s a mark of a godly wife that loves her Lord.  And it’s a reminder that my wife is much more than my wife – she’s God’s daughter.  She’s precious in His sight.  And as my wife as well as my sister in Christ, I can echo the words that the apostle Paul wrote about his brothers and sisters in Christ in the church at Philippi, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of (her), always in every prayer of mine for (her) making my prayer with joy, because of (her) partnership in the gospel from the first day (I met her) until now.  And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in (her) will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:3-6). It is that good work that I’ve had the privilege to witness for these 45 years. 

Thank you, God, for my precious and godly wife.