A Wise Manager

Dannah Gresh: Ever feel overwhelmed? Like you’re at the end of yourself? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says that’s not all bad.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And it’s a good thing to be in a position where we can’t make it without God. Where our circumstances force us to cry out to God day after day for help and grace and strength and wisdom.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude, for August 14, 2024. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Over the last several sessions we’ve gotten to know a remarkable woman. She does good to her husband. She has a heart for her home. She provides food for her household.

We read about this woman in Proverbs chapter 31, and Nancy’s been unpacking this passage for us. We’ve been reminded that we can’t be like this woman on our own. But we don’t have to. Jesus is our perfect righteousness, and we don’t have to perform. And now, by His grace, He teaches us to have a heart like this woman we read about in Proverbs 31. Here’s Nancy to continue in the passage.

Nancy: Now verse 16 tells us:

She considers a field and buys it.
From her profits, she plants a vineyard.

Now, there are a number of things that this verse makes clear to us.

The first and most obvious is that she considers. She thinks before she spends. She's not an impulsive spender. She's not one of these women who go out and sees a great buy and says, "Charge it!" She stops to think, Is it something we need? Is it something that will benefit our family? Is this a purchase that my husband would feel good about? Because, remember, her husband's heart trusts in her. She's not going to make decisions that run counter to his direction and his leadership for the family. Is this something we can afford?

She thinks before she buys. My dad used to tease my mother about how she saved him thousands of dollars on sales. And just because something is on sale doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good buy or that's it's something that is needed or is something that it's the right time for or that the family can afford.

Now, I want to say that my dad greatly appreciated all the money that my mother saved him on sales as she was clothing our family of seven children and the fact that she did make thoughtful and careful and wise purchases. That's the heart of a virtuous or excellent woman.

So here's a woman who sees a field that's for sale. She considers its value. She considers her family's financial situation, their needs, their priorities, their financial planning. She consults with her husband, and they agree together that this is what is best for their family.

Then she goes ahead and makes a purchase. But she does it as a team player. She's serving her family. And keep in mind, this was probably not a ranch she was purchasing but a lot, a piece of property that would be used to generate profit, economic benefit for their family.

The amplified translation says that at this point, "She considers a new field before she buys or accepts it, expanding prudently and not courting neglect of her present duties by assuming other duties. With her savings of time and strength, she plants fruitful vines in her vineyard." So here's a woman who has good business instincts, a good business mind, and she knows how to determine if something will be of value in meeting the needs of her family.

Now, there are a lot of women who don't think it's important to have a good head about financial matters and that actually can prove to be a great burden, a liability, to her husband and to her family.

Now, how exactly a husband and wife divide all this up, certainly is up for discussion. And the husband will give the overall direction as to who is actually signing the checks, who is actually keeping the ledger, keeping the books; but we know that the basic direction and leadership for the family will come, in the norm, in God's ideal, through the husband.

But here's a woman who is a partner with her husband. She is his helper. So she realizes that it's important that she be able to think wisely and prudently about financial matters.

I have watched situations where a woman's impulsiveness or her being demanding has resulted in incredible pressure on a husband and on a family and has actually, in situations, ended up in bankruptcy, in divorce, in untold conflict and misery and pain for that family because of a woman who was acting independently and who was making financial decisions based on her own pleasures, her own lusts, her own desires rather than based on what was in the best interest of that family—a woman who had to have things, had to have designer things, had to have expensive things; could not or would not live within the family means and budget.

You are better off in your family having less, having not as many things, having one vehicle instead of two, having fewer things, waiting to get that nice or larger home, being more cramped together for a period of time and having peace in your home and love in your home and oneness of spirit in your home, than spending money that your husband doesn't make or forcing him to take another job or forcing yourself into the marketplace so that you can support that habit and then having to live with the bills, the indebtedness, the pressure, the conflict, the arguments.

You know, as well as I do, that many arguments in marriages are based on financial matters because women and men aren't being a team. Husbands and wives aren't acting together as one. And a wife has a huge responsibility here to believe God for the grace and the wisdom and the creativity to live within the resources that God provides through her husband.

Let me just say as we are looking at this idea woman, this "looking glass," as Matthew Henry says, this portrait of godly womanhood, let me acknowledge that there are many, many women who are living in situations that are far from the ideal.

I was going through a file this morning of some emails that I've received at   Some of them are very encouraging. They're married to a godly man. And they're really just a husband and wife pursuing the Lord; trying to raise up their family in the way of God. That's a hard enough life as it is in this world, to do that, with the best of marriages and the best of hearts.

But then I get a lot of other emails and letters from women who say, "You can't imagine how it is in my home." "My husband is an alcoholic." "My children are doing drugs." "I come from an abusive background." "I've been twice divorced." "I'm on my own and a single mother with all these children." And some of these women are really wanting to please the Lord, but are in circumstances that are not the ideal. I know that is probably the norm today than people living with this picture we seeing in Proverbs 31 of a God-fearing husband and a God-fearing wife raising God-fearing children. Let me just say, that doesn't happen overnight. No family starts out that way in terms of maturity. It takes a process; it takes growth.

But I know there are many, many women who listen to this program who get discouraged very easily because when they seek to fear the Lord, they are doing it in the context of a home where it is extremely difficult. And can I just say to you women, that God has grace for you for that situation.

I can't give you a formula; I can't tell you how to solve it. You can't make your husband become a believer. You can't make your husband be a godly man. But I'll tell you what you can do, and that is to focus on being a woman of God, a woman who fears the Lord and cries out to the Lord for grace, as every one of us has to do in our life situation, whatever it is. Say, "Lord, I can't do this without You. I can't do this on my own." And it's a good thing to be in a position where we can't make it without God, where our circumstances force us to cry out to God day after day for help and grace and strength and wisdom.

So my heart goes out to you, and I do pray for women who are listening to this program who are trying to apply it in very tough life circumstances and situations. And all I can say to you is, "I know there is grace. "I know that you can be a woman of God in the midst of any life circumstance. You can walk with God. You can have a grateful spirit, a trustworthy spirit, a loyal spirit, a diligent spirit, all these qualities we're seeing in this virtuous, excellent woman. They don't depend on what kind of husband you have or if you have a husband. They depend on your relationship with God. So that's what you want to keep central and foremost as we continue in this study in Proverbs chapter 31.

And then let me ask you to just skip down to verse 24. I want to bring that verse up in this context.

She makes linen garments and sells them,
And supplies sashes for the merchants.

So we see here a woman who saves, spends, and invests wisely. And again, it all comes out of her fear of the Lord. She's always seeking the Lord.

This is not. "What will make me happy?" This is not, "What do I want to do with my life and my time and my resources?" This is, "How does God want me to spend my money?"

• How does God want me to give?
• How does He want us to save?
• How does He want us to spend?
• How does He want us to invest?

Wisdom comes from the Lord.

I know that there are a lot of women, particularly those of you who have made that tough decision to stay at home when you have children in the home and are not earning an income outside your home, it's very difficult in many cases to make ends meet. And that takes wisdom from God to know how to do that. It takes crying out to the Lord and saying, "Lord, You are our ultimate provider" and asking God to meet your needs.

I'm not just using human reason or understanding to say, "Oh, that must mean that I've got to go get a job." Maybe God wants to provide for your family in ways that are more like what He did for the children of Israel in the wilderness when he sent manna from heaven.

You think, God wouldn't do that! I'll tell you what, if you trust God and you obey God, God will do whatever He has to do to meet your needs. He used a raven to feed Elijah in a time of drought. And if God needs to send a raven to feed you, I'm just simple enough to believe, if that's what it takes, God can do it. And He just may. But He will do whatever is necessary to meet your needs as you walk in faith and obedience. Now, this woman is investing her savings and earnings from the fruit of her hands to increase the family's capital, to enhance that family's financial well-being.

We've seen that she makes clothes for her family, but she is a hard worker and she makes more than her family needs so that she has enough left over to do two things. One, she can be a giver. She's able to minister to the poor. But she also makes enough beyond that so she can sell the surplus. She sells those sashes, those garments to the merchants, and can bring in some extra income for the family. By doing this, she's not being the breadwinner for the family. I realize there are some situations where a woman has no alternative than to be the primary breadwinner, but we're talking about what is the ideal here.

There are those who would hold up the woman in this passage as an example of a career woman and say, "Look, this Proverbs 31 woman, she's out there, she's selling and buying fields and selling sashes and doing merchandising and whatever."

But I'll tell you what, as you meditate on this passage, you realize that this woman is not our modern-day view of a career woman. To the contrary, she is working out of her home. She makes these garments at home, and then she sells them to the merchants. That doesn't mean she's a merchant. When it says that she's "like the merchant ships," it's talking about her bringing home food, groceries, not necessarily a paycheck. When she buys a field, as one writer has said, that doesn't make her a real estate agent any more than buying shoes for your family makes you a shoe salesman.

This is out of her home, investing in ways with her husband as a team, that are contributing to the family's well being. She develops a cottage industry. And she does that by developing a skill that first her family needs. They need clothes so she learns how to make clothes. They need food. She learns how to purchase food. She develops a skill that contributes to her family and then she's able to make that skill profitable beyond her home. She's productive. She's not the primary breadwinner, that is her husband's responsibility, but she does make an economic contribution.

Her goal is not to make money for personal fulfillment, it's not so she can have her own private spending account, it's always for the sake of her family. Keep in mind here her goal is not to build a business. Her goal is to build a home, to build a family, to build her husband, her children, to build a family name, to build the next generation. "The wise woman builds her house. The foolish tears it down with her hands" Proverbs 14:1 tells us.

This woman is not out there to make a name for herself, how she can have her own career, how she can have her own reputation, how she can have her own money. She's one with her husband. She's committed to serving and loving and giving and investing in any way that she can, including financially, in order that her family can be all that God intended them to be.

As we've talked about this passage, Lord, I think of women that I know who are in homes where they're struggling to make ends meet. Some wives and husbands who have together made the difficult choice to have the wife come into home, particularly during those childrearing years, to be focusing her time and attention and affection on that family.

I know that in this economy where it is considered almost essential to have two incomes, some have made a very courageous and tough choice that they are going to be willing to do with less, and they're going to trust You to provide for them so that woman is going to be in the home caring for her family, caring for her husband and her children.

And I want to lift up particularly those women to You, Lord, and pray that You would encourage them, that You would strengthen them, that You would teach them and their husbands to cry out to You as their provider, that You would teach them to walk by faith, that You would demonstrate to them Your power in this very secular world to provide in ways that are supernatural. And that their homes, their lives, would become a testimony, a tribute of Your power, Your ability, to meet their needs.

I pray that you would give them wisdom and show them how they can contribute economically to the well-being of the family. Show them how to develop skills and abilities that they can use, not only in ministering to their family, but beyond to be givers. That they would have additional income as they work out of their homes—workers at home. Show them how to be productive, how to be fruitful, how to be enterprising, how to be wise.

And would You glorify Yourself as we seek to live out the priorities that You have established for our lives. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Dannah: When you work at managing household finances well, it gives God glory. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been helping us see that as she's been walking us through Proverbs 31. Giving God glory is what you and I were made to do.

Here at Revive Our Hearts, we want to help you do that in a variety of ways. One of them is by learning to embrace and love God's design for you as a woman. This month, as a thank you for your donation this month, as a thank-you for your donation of any amount, we’d love to send you a booklet by Nancy called Biblical Portrait of Womanhood. She looks at what the Bible says about bringing God glory as a woman.

Ask about it when you contact us with your donation of any amount. To give, just visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Also, be sure to check out the Summer Bible Study Sale while you’re at our website.

Maybe you’re making plans for what Bible study to use with the women at your church this fall. Well, we have some suggestions for you, and they’re available at discounted rates! Today’s the last day of the sale, so head to ReviveOurHearts.com and click where you see the sale mentioned.

You know, you can’t really live out what we heard today about wise household finances if you don’t have a heart of contentment. Erin Davis talked with Melissa Kruger about contentment here on Revive Our Hearts. And to close our time, let’s listen to a bit of that conversation.

Melissa Kruger: I started to see when I was living in a city that, truthfully, was really wealthy, really affluent. Women, in some ways, “had it all.”

In some ways, I was living that as well, and yet we were also struggling with contentment. It seemed to be this elusive thing that was always around the corner: “Oh, when they all get to elementary school . . . when we get the right house . . . when we get in the right neighborhood . . .”

And this game had been played since college, right? Or maybe it was even before college: “When I get into college . . .” I started to notice this seemed to be a pattern of life that maybe had something to do with me, rather than just my circumstances.

It was in that wrestling—and really in my study of Scripture—that I came to see, “Oh, this is a pattern of sin and how it works in my heart,” rather than just, “Circumstances that keep happening to me.”

Erin Davis: So you say the cry of the covetous is, “Life’s not fair!” How do you trace that sense of injustice to covetousness?

Melissa: I think it is at the root of us, that we look at the way life’s going and we . . . I did this as a kid. It was between my brother and me, just like we’re talking about siblings. It’s a great place to learn about your sin—just by having a sibling.

I can remember going to my mom and saying, “That’s not fair! Life’s not fair!” And my mom, she would always respond, “Life isn’t fair.” I think it’s one of the best things she taught me, in some ways. What a preparation for life! It’s not fair.

Some people will get into better colleges than you. Some people will make more money than you. Some people will have better marriages than you, better children than you. I mean, this is life—that we don’t really know what our lives will be.

I don’t even think we know how many expectations of life we have until we get into life, and all the sudden we realize they’re not being fulfilled. In our soul we’re crying out to God, “You haven’t been fair to me!” It’s such a deep sorrow.

The gospel says, “Life is not fair—in your favor! You deserved an eternity of punishment and wrath, and it has all been poured on my Son!”

And so, if life hasn’t been fair, the Person it has not been fair to is Christ! And here I am—His blood has been shed for me—and how can I ever say God hasn’t been fair to me? It’s really an insult to the grace that I’ve gotten, and I’m basically equating the thing that I don’t have with the cross of Christ.

Let’s say I don’t have a minivan with sliding doors (which is not what we’re normally crying about, but just to give a simple example). Am I going to say, “I know You gave the cross for me; I know You died and bled for me . . . but WHY haven’t You given me this minivan with sliding doors!?”

How embarrassing is that? It’s kind of like the person who gives you a million dollars, and you say, “But, can you give me this penny?” It shows that really don’t value the cross of Christ and what’s been won for us.

Because, if God gave us His Son, can’t we trust Him with whatever He withholds? In a lot of ways, we don’t—and we cry out, “It’s just not fair!”

Erin: It reminds me of Galatians 1, when Paul’s saying, “I’m shocked how many of you have been drawn to another gospel, not that there is another gospel . . .” But it’s like, “I need Jesus . . . AND . . . (fill in the blank).” So we’re adding to the gospel.

I think in the course of our day, we don’t peel back the layers that much, so I appreciate that you make the connection between, “I’m feeling discontent, I’m feeling restless, I’m feeling unhappy,” to “Life’s not fair!” And then, really, that’s about the cross.

And you talk about it being an issue, really, of unbelief—that God isn’t good, because He won’t take care of you, that He’s not sovereign. 

Melissa: I think that’s our biggest problem. And really, that’s what Satan did in the garden with Eve. He stirred up her unbelief. I think he did it in two areas. He did it in, “Is God really in control?” He says, “Surely you won’t die.” And that’s basically a question: “Is God going to really fulfill His will? Is He going to do what He said He would do?”

Erin: “Will he keep His promises?”

Melissa: Yes, and then, the second thing, he goes in and he questions God’s goodness. It’s almost like he’s censuring God for holding something back from Eve. “Oh, what about that tree? Why can’t you eat of that? Oh, God knows you’ll be like Him.” He stirs the pot of unbelief—challenging God’s goodness and sovereignty, that God’s reigning.

I think that’s what he does with us. Each of us will doubt in different ways. For me, it tends to go to, “Is God really good to you?” But for others it would be, “Can God really do what He said He was going to do? How can He fulfill His good promises for me if this is the truth in my life?”

So we’re always wrestling with these same types of unbelief; it just can be in different ways. But I think unbelief is at the heart of most of it.

Erin: As you were retelling Eve’s story, I was thinking how easy it was to trick her. I mean, she fell for it! Really, there wasn’t any convincing; they didn’t have to hash it out. I think those lies are so close to the surface of our heart that we fall for them. I know I do, over and over again.

Melissa: Oh, yes. It’s just those little questions that stir it up.

Erin: Sure. You give three characteristics of coveting, and they’re heavy hitters, these characteristics. One, coveting is a sin pattern—not a circumstance. Ouch! What’s the difference?

Melissa: I know. Well, I think what most of us can see . . . We can look back at a pattern in our lives. If you think back to what you really did want when you were fifteen, you might laugh to yourself.

Erin: A boy!

Melissa: Yes, and you’re like, “Now, I’m so glad I didn’t get that boy!”

Erin: I am!

Melissa: Exactly. And you really wanted something or someone. You look at your twenties, and you were aching for something else. Then you go to your thirties, you’re aching for something else. Then your forties . . .

It’s this pattern that continues in life. I realized, it really is a sin pattern that continues to rob us of joy—not just our circumstances. The reality is, Jesus said, “In Me you’ll have peace; in this world you’ll have trouble; take heart, I’ve overcome the world” (see John 16:33).

It’s like we don’t want that second part. We want hear about the peace, and so we think it should just descend on us. But He’s saying the world, the circumstances you’re going to face in the world, are full of trouble. “In Me you’ll find peace, not in the circumstances I give you.”

When we feel enslaved to our circumstances, we’re just always reacting to them—and we feel beat up about life. But when we recognize it as a sin pattern—hold on! We know we can fight a sin pattern.

You can’t fight a circumstance. We do try to control it and make it happen the way we want. Sarah did that with Abraham. It didn’t go well. We have examples of people who did that.

But the reality is, this pattern is going to continue no matter what our circumstances are. And so we need to accept, “I may get the thing I want, but my heart will still be struggling with this pattern.”

Dannah: That’s Melissa Kruger talking with Erin Davis about being contented in the Lord himself. That’s the basis for all our other financial decisions.

Now, do you feel like you often don’t have the strength you need to get your work done for the day? That’s something Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will discuss tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts. We’ll continue in our series on Proverbs 31. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the NKJV.

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