Portrait of a Foolish Woman

I have recently started reading back through the archives of past programs from the radio show Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. I just finished reading through and studying the 10-part series called Portrait of a Foolish Woman. The lesson text is Proverbs 7 where a father admonishes his son to guard his heart with the story of a foolish woman enticing a foolish man. I have read this proverb many times before but never related myself to this foolish woman. But after a reflective study of this text, I found myself more like this woman than I care to admit.

As I read through the script from the program and studied the Scripture text, I found myself jotting a lot of notes and questions in the margin of this proverb. I have thought much about these things (and repented much) and hope to read through the questions I wrote down periodically as an accountability check on my heart. Might I encourage you to read through the series on the foolish woman? Grab your Bibles and examine your heart to discover any of the following ways in which you are walking the way of the foolish woman:

* Am I staying away from places and situations where the natural thing would be to do something wrong?

* When I am away from home, is it to benefit and bless and serve my family? Or am I out because I am discontent?

* Is my heart rebellious and defiant or yielding and submissive?

* Are my motives pure or am I drawing undue attention to myself?

* Am I focusing all my love, affection and devotion into my husband or channeling it elsewhere?

* Am I throwing myself – in my attitude, eyes, speech or physically – on other men?

* Am I speaking as kindly, graciously, gratefully and tenderly to my own husband and more so than I am to other men?

* Am I being discreet in my conversations?

* Am I failing to think of the long-term impact of my words, actions and choices?

* Do I have a conscious, constant sense that God is here in every conversation and situation?

* Am I faithful to my husband in the midst of hard times, to do him good and not evil?

* Do I talk too much, failing to remember that “In the multitude of words sin is not absent.” (Proverbs 10:19)?

* Am I speaking with wisdom and kindness?

* Am I speaking as kindly to those in my home as I do to those at church, to other women, to other men?

* Am I speaking the right words at the right time in the right spirit?

* Have I cast down the men around me with my words, my spirit?

* Do I intimidate them or discourage them?

* Do I cast down my husband by comparing him to others, critical comments, or trying to make him something he’s not?

* Am I tearing down the lives of the men around me?

* Do I demonstrate any of the characteristics of this foolish woman in my life, in my attitudes, in my relationships?

May God work in each of our hearts and lives to become the wise women of God that give life and health and joy to those around us.