It’s all about HIM – Prov. 31:29

I didn’t intend to do this write-up today, but something happened to me earlier this evening, which I just knew was tied into the verse.

Let’s look at the verse before I tell the tale :

Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all [KJV]

My story goes like this -  I was strolling through the streets of the shopping centre at The Hague Centrum, actually I was leaving to go back to my host’s as it was already dark. These two young ladies walked up to me and started speaking Dutch (or some other language, I assume it was Dutch). My initial reaction was “Oh sorry, I don’t speak Dutch and I’m a visitor here as well, so I don’t know the way around and can’t give you directions”. But then they said – in broken English, that they were from Curacao living in The Netherlands, and they were Christians. Now that I found interesting, evangelists in Europe! They went on to tell me about how Christ loved me and had died for my sins and how I needed to be born again, and I listened with the patience of an older person patronisingly waiting for a younger one to finish recounting an experience that he (the older one) had gone through before. I was thinking “Yes, I know I know, you’re preaching to the convert, so go out there and tell someone who really needs it cos I already got it”.

But for some strange reason, these beautiful young ladies would’t just let me walk away. They asked if I’d been baptised by water and the Holy Spirit, and if I spoke in tongues – to which I was like, “Yes, and yes – can I go now?”

But one of them caught something in my tone when she spoke of baptism – Up till today, I was of the school of thought that baptism is baptism, whether you’re 20 minutes/ 20 hours / 20 years / 200 years old, and I told them as much. I told them I had been baptized (by sprinkling) as a child, not as an infant and truly believed that this satisfied the Christian rite of baptism and more importantly I DID NOT believe that God would turn me back at the gates of heaven because I didn’t get dipped three times in some random pool of water!

Then one of them – Rochelle – said something I will never forget. She said, (and I paraphrase)

Sometimes the Lord just wants us to submit our hearts and our will to Him, and it could be that He’s just waiting for that submission to take us from the point where we are to a higher level.

I tell you, she might as well have been a burning bush, because at that moment, it dawned on me that what I have been doing is serving the Lord on my own terms. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t steal or lie or cheat or commit adultery or swear, but my heart is still ruled by me – what I want and what I don’t want.

So while I am a born again heaven-bound child of God, doing right in my own eyes, I am not being the woman of virtue that the Lord wants me to be.

Even without reading the verse, I knew that the experience had something to do with it, and when I got home I again looked up the meaning of virtue.

It is the Hebrew word chayil which means to be strong in all moral and mental qualities.

In essence what this verse confirmed to me was the fact that while I may be strong in moral and mental qualities, doing good in all things good, I have not attained the “excellest them all” rating.

And ladies, who is that woman that excellest them all? I think by now we all have a pretty good idea who that is.

She is the woman who not only spends time with God on purpose to know who He is and live her life for Him, but also ENTIRELY submits her will TO Him, to be His child and His servant on this earth.

If you’re like me, you probably have been asking the Lord to take you to a deeper level of knowledge, understanding and intimacy of Him, and ladies this is His response:

Daughter you have done virtuosly, but thou hast not excellest them all

The Lord does not do halves and it is a choice we have here today – Ladies, I’d like you to seriously consider this one now – You can either stay where you are spiritually (and probably retrogress, maybe) or continually step forward into the Lord’s Will.

It is a choice, and a continuous one too!

If you’re ready, pray with me will you:

Father in Heaven we thank you for speaking to us this day. We thank you because you always choose the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. Thank you because you are the master of the whole universe and you work through whomever you please. Lord, we thank you for your revelation today, that you want us to submit to you wholly so that we can move from this level of our walk with you to the next. Lord, everything we do is by you grace and your grace alone. Grant us therefore precious Lord this grace to continously give up and surrender and submit our will to you that we may be emptied of self and filled to overflowing with the love of you. Merciful Father we thank you because it is your pleasure to hear and grant our prayers – we are grateful Lord, now and forever more in Jesus Name.

Amen.

God bless you Rochelle and Lisette, and all of you BMV ladies!

I love you all.

Orifie