PC | Day Five: Pray Proverbs 31
Proverbs 31 can be used to pray for yourself and others
You made it to the last day!
Are you looking forward to your prayer time more now? I hope so!
Today, we are going to pray for ourselves, as women.
If there are men reading this, I apologize. You will need to adapt this a bit – I will give suggestions for that at the end though.
Proverbs 31 is a verse with which many of us are very familiar. This woman sometimes seems like an unachievable dream type of woman. I do not think so, as I cover quite a bit in a study that compares the woman in Proverbs 31 to the Widow in 1 Timothy 5.
Another reason I do not think she is someone we cannot match is because of Romans 15:4 and Ephesians 5:17. God’s word is here to HELP us. He didn’t give us examples that we have no hope of attaining. Jesus’ example is perfect, and even though we will not be sinless (Romans 3:23), we are perfected when we imitate Him by living by His will (1 Cor. 11:1; Phil. 2:1-13).
Therefore, the woman in Proverbs 31 is someone I can learn from and imitate because she is a woman who fears the Lord (Prov. 31:30).
Today we are going to take Proverbs 31:10-31 and look at two ways we can pray this scripture, for ourselves or for other women we know.
The first way is to go verse by verse, like we did with Psalm 100.
You would use the Praying Scripture Worksheet to write one verse on the left and then a prayer counterpart in your own words on the right. Writing verse 10 as a prayer might look something like this –
Dear God, my Father in Heaven,
In Your word, You say that an excellent wife is hard to find and worth
more than rubies. Help me to be a woman like her. Different from the
world. Precious in Your eyes and in the eyes of my husband. Help me to
realize my value and to work be of value to others around me.
You would go through each verse and keep adding to the prayer.
This is a lengthy scripture. Once you have written out prayers for each verse. You might choose to only include one of them in your daily prayers. That way, each day you are praying for a different aspect of being a Godly woman.
The second way to pray this scripture would be to group like verses together.
Verses 10, 26 and 30 could all be brought together for an opening or closing of your prayer. They could also be used together to form one prayer for one day.
Verses 11-12, 23, and 28-29 can be used to focus on praying about your marriage, for your husband, for you as his wife, etc.
Verses 13-22, 24-27, and 31 all can help us to pray about the ways in which we are productive as keepers of the home (1 Tim. 5:14; Titus 2:5).
There are probably a few ways to group them into smaller groups as well.
Before I send you to do your challenge for today, I want to leave a few verses with you.
Romans 8:26-27 “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
Romans 8:33-34 “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”
And
Hebrews 7:25 “Therefore He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”
Romans 8:26-27 specifically states that the Spirit up in heaven will pray for you when you do not have the words. The other two references remind us of why we would add “in Jesus’ name” to our prayers. Because Jesus is standing between us and God. He is taking our case to God the Father. This would include the prayers that call on God for things that are according to His will.
God the Father. God the Son. God the Holy Spirit.
They are working to HELP you. They want you to be one with God. They want you to be in communication with the Father. They want you to write the word the Spirit revealed in the scriptures on your heart so you can speak them.
This prayer thing.
This thing that can seem so daunting.
This thing we are afraid to begin because we might mess it up.
We are putting too much faith in ourselves when we do this. We are not putting enough faith in God and His promises.
God has promised to hear His people. A wonderful exercise, for another day, is to go through each Psalm. Just looking for “God hears” or “Lord hear”. See just how many times the Psalmists trusted that God WOULD hear. It is powerful.
Now, your challenge is to choose one of the methods mentioned above to use Proverbs 31:10-31 as a frame for a prayer.
The obvious prayers will be for married women.
Let me suggest what can be done by women who are not married.
Write your prayer either one of two ways – looking towards the future as a wife and preparing for it OR just replace the references to husband and children with parents, family or friends. Every woman can be a woman like this. And as Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 7, a single woman can give a laser focus to serving the Lord and the people around her that a married woman cannot. Lydia was, by all appearances, a single woman. In Acts 16 we learn about her zeal for the Lord as well as her ability to serve others. She provided for a household through hard work.
Take Proverbs 31 and make it yours – married or not. The encouragement remains the same. Your value remains the same, because not every other unmarried woman will take it upon herself to do more for others than she does for herself.
Let me also suggest some ways men can pray these scriptures.
Unmarried men - pray for the woman you WANT to marry. Draw a picture of this type of woman – a young woman who will work to grow into the woman who is described in Proverbs 31. After all, the scripture was written as an instruction from a mother to her son on what to look for in a wife. Men, use it as such.
Married men – pray for the woman you WANT. If your wife is not yet this blessing - either you are not giving credit in some way OR she has never learned to desire to be a woman like this. Pray for your wife every day. Pray for her to study God’s word and to grow. Pray for her to long to be a good keeper of the home.
Men – women have a lot of garbage being thrown at them by women of the world right now. They are not a real woman if they want to stay at home and have kids. They are not a real woman if they cannot hold down a job outside the home AND have kids. They are not a real woman if they don’t want to have kids. I can go on. They are told to tear down men to lift themselves up. They are confused between being a woman or being a man in woman’s clothing. Pray for her. God’s example of a woman of valor, a warrior for the home, is not a burden around her neck – it is a blessing that will build her up. If you believe that then maybe she will come to believe it also. PRAY.
Ok – I am going to leave you to your challenge. I apologize if it takes you longer than 15 minutes after I rambled on in this lesson.
Thank you being on this journey with me! My prayer is that it has given you the tools to be confident about approaching God in prayer.
If I have misused scripture in any way, please be my friend and point it out to me. Also, if there is something that wasn’t covered thoroughly that you would like to study, send me an email. I would love to study further with you.
Enjoy!
With all diligence,
Angela – The Diligent Woman