Working with Your Whole Heart

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says: as you grow in godliness, expect to engage in manual labor.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You see, working with our hands is the cure, the antidote for laziness, to stealing, and to uselessness.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude, for August 12, 2024. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Last week Nancy began a series in Proverbs 31. She helped us explore the words of a wise mother to her son. Then she took us through the first few verses about a virtuous wife. Those verses are:

Who can find a wife of noble character?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will not lack anything good.
She rewards him with good, not evil,
all the days of her life. (vv. 10–12 CSB)

If you’ve missed any of the series so far, you can listen or read the transcript by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com or by going to the Revive Our Hearts app. Here’s Nancy. 

Nancy: Now as we come to verse 13, we begin to see how this woman's excellence and virtue, how her love and devotion works itself out in practical everyday ways. You see, we see that she has an excellent and virtuous heart, but only God can see her heart.

So what does this kind of heart look like in everyday life? What does this woman with this kind of heart act like? How does it affect her schedule, her priorities, her activities, her day? How does a woman who is loyal to her husband as we read about in the last session, how does she spend her time? How does she live out that commitment?

And one of things you'll notice as we get into this passage is that the standard of godliness we're looking at here is not a picture of a woman who becomes a religious hermit, a woman who takes her Bible and her notebook and her study guide and goes by herself off into a cave somewhere, or into her bedroom and just spends all her life being alone with God, being godly.

Now she does need to spend time alone with God to become a godly woman. But she doesn't spend most of her time alone. She comes out of that room. She comes out of that place and lives out that walk and that relationship with God and that devotion to God and lives it out in the laboratory of life, in the nitty-gritty, day in and day out of life.

In 1 Timothy chapter 2, Paul tells us that women professing godliness should be adorned with good works. That's how the heart for God manifests itself. It evidences itself in the way that we work.

Verse 13 of Proverbs 31 tells us "she seeks wool and flax," this godly woman, this excellent woman, this virtuous woman, this woman that we think is so high up there that we could never attain to her. She is intensely practical.

She seeks wool and flax,
And willingly works with her hands.

She is a working woman.

I don't like it when I hear people say to a woman "Do you work?" to a woman. Now I know what they probably mean is "Do you have job that pays you a paycheck outside of your home?" But the fact is any woman who is a godly woman, works. And a godly woman works hard.

Here is a woman who takes initiative to meet the practical needs of her husband and her children. She is a hard worker. She's diligent, and that comes out throughout this passage. Verse 15 talks about her getting up while it is still dark outside. Verse 18 talks to us about how she stays up late at night, she's working in the evening. Verse 27 says she does not eat the bread of idleness. She's a diligent woman.

I saw a definition of diligence that I thought was helpful. Diligence is viewing each task as a special assignment from the Lord and using all my energies to accomplish it. You say, "seeking wool and flax, and willingly working with her hands," is this a special assignment from the Lord?

If that's what God gives you to do, to take care of the practical needs of your family, then it's an assignment from the Lord. And to be diligent is to accept it as God's assignment for your life and then to pour your energies into accomplishing that assignment.

Now this woman does this in very practical ways. We see in the verse that she's involved in spinning and weaving and sewing. This is purposeful activity. These are not just hobbies. This is not just recreation. She is practically meeting the needs of her family—and ultimately the needs of others as we'll see in this passage.

Now we're talking about a woman in a culture and in an era where all the clothing, all the draperies, all the upholtery, all the linens; everything was manufactured at home by the women. Her hands clothed her family. She made them virtually from scratch.

It talks about wool and flax. These were the two basic elements used in weaving the raw materials. Wool was used to make heavy outer warm garments and flax was used to make fine linen and inner garments, sleepwear, things like that, sheets, etc. She worked with her hands.

First, she went and got the raw materials, and then she worked with her hands to manufacture her fabrics for her family. There was a lot of labor involved in the process—I can't even imagine! The drying, beating, peeling, combing, and finally spinning the flax. It was heavy labor. As we're told in Proverbs 14, verse 23, "In all labor, there is profit."

So as you labor for your family—it may not be in wool and flax—but as you work with your hands, work in your home and handle with your hands the practical details to take of your family; in all labor there is profit. Labor is good. Work is good and this woman, who has a godly heart, labors. She works to minister to the needs of her family.

Then I want to pick up on one other word in that verse. She willingly works with her hands. The NIV there says, "With eager hands she works." It's literally with a delight of her hands. This suggests—now hold on here, because you may not believe this—that she actually enjoys her work. She does it with enjoyment. She puts her hands joyfully to work. It may not be because the tasks themselves are inherently joyous tasks.

If you're a mother or have been a wife and mother for any length of time, unless you just really love cooking, there have to come some of those times when the preparation of two or three meals a day and the cleanup after those meals just becomes a labor. But here is a woman who has a joyful and willing heart, which gives joy and meaning to the work of her hands. She puts her hands joyfully to work.

It speaks of her attitude toward work. She is not only a worker—a hard worker, a worker at home—but she is a willing worker, a glad-hearted worker. She is cheerful about her work.

This is a woman who takes manual labor, and lots of being a homemaker just is manual labor that in and of itself would be thankless work . . . But she offers up that work—that manual labor—to God, and it becomes an act of worship. It becomes an act of love. As she works willingly, her work is sanctified. The work of her hands is consecrated to God, and that makes it holy work.

We read in Ecclesiastes 9, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might." Do it energetically. Do it enthusiastically. For this woman, her work is not drudgery. It's not chores, though she could certainly look at it that way. But she has chosen to have a different kind of attitude about work because she sees the end result. She sees the purpose. She sees the meaning. She sees the motivation behind that work. It's love. It's love for others. It's love for God. It's a love for God that makes her willing to work with her hands at providing food and clothing and cleanup around the house. It's motivated by love.

That doesn't necessarily make the work any easier. But anything that we do for love of God and love of others, the load is lightened. Haven't you found that to be true? When we do it with a willing heart, it takes on a different perspective. She's not living for herself. She is living for others. She finds her greatest joy in loving service for others.

I'm not just trying to romanticize something that is really just tough, menial, manual labor. I'm not saying that if you don't scrub the kitchen floor with singing as you do, that you're not a godly woman. There are times when we just in all of our lives have work that we just have to do because it has to be done. But there's something that I want to have in my work that I want you to have in your work. It is a willingness of heart as we work, a cheerful heart about our work.

One writer I read on Proverbs 31 said, "Only love can make such diligent service sweet and delightful. Where love is lacking, this work will be the worst drudgery."

Then verse 19. I'm going to skip to verse 19 and just pull that in at this point.

She stretches out her hands to the distaff,
Snd her hand holds the spindle.

Here is a woman who works with her hands. We've seen the fact that she works hard. She works at home. She works willingly with an eager heart. But practically, she works with her hands.

It's interesting to me that there are six references to hands in Proverbs 31—verses 13, 16, 19, 20, and 31. We have specifically here a picture in verses 13 and 19 of a woman who is getting the raw ingredients of wool and flax and is working with her hands to spin those raw ingredients into thread, and then to make fabric, and then out of that fabric to make clothing.

As we see all those references to her hands—the work of her hands, the fruit of her hands, the profits of her hands, depending on which translation you are using—something says to me . . . And this is, by the way, a good insight into just your own Scripture study, when you see something repeated in a passage, stop and ask yourself, "Why is it repeated? Why is it emphasized?"

Some people come up to me and say, "I wish I could get out of Scripture what you get out of it." And I'm thinking, You can. Take the time, open your Bible and begin to ask questions. Notice things and make observations. One of the obvious observations in this passage is there is so many references to her hands.

So I said, "What is the significance of that?" Then I began to think about other biblical references to hands. That will perhaps be a little insight to you in your own study of God's Word. Biblically, there is a special significance to working with our hands, starting with the fact that God works with His hands. That ought to make handwork meaningful.

Psalm 8 tells us that the heavens are the work of His fingers (see v. 3). When that passage is quoted again in Hebrews 1, it says, "The heavens are the work of Your hands" (v. 10). Then Psalm 8 tells us, "You have made man [God has made man] to have dominion over the works of Your hands" (v. 6). This earth is the work of God's hands. Psalm 1:11 tells us, "The works of His hands are truth and justice."

Then we know that Jesus worked with His hands. Growing up as the son of a carpenter, it's certain that He did labor as a carpenter with His hands. But then He also used His hands to be a means of blessing to others. Matthew 19, "He laid His hands on [the children]" (v. 15).

I think about that when I'm with other people's children, I like to just put my hand on the head of that child or on the shoulder of that child to bless that child as Jesus would if He were here on earth and as He did on earth.

Luke 24, as Jesus was getting ready after His resurrection to be ascended back into heaven, the Scripture says, "He lifted up His hands and He blessed them" (v. 50). He blessed His disciples. He did it symbolically with His hands.

The apostles worked with their hands. First Corinthians 4, the apostle Paul said, "We labor, working with our own hands" (v. 12). Acts 20 tells us that Paul speaking to the elders at Ephesus says, "You yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me" (v. 34).

Isn't it interesting that the great apostle Paul, who penned I think thirteen books of the New Testament, was not above working with his hands. He labored with this hands to provide for his physical needs so that he could be the apostle, teaching and preaching and proclaiming the gospel.

He goes on to say in Acts 20, "I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak." [You must also work with your hands.] And remember the words of the Lord Jesus. He said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive'" (Acts 20:35).

So Paul said, "When you're working with your hands, you're providing a means of giving to minister to the needs of others." It's better. You receive more blessing from working with your hands so that you have something to give to others than you do by even being on the receiving end.

That's really the spirit then of what we read in Ephesians 4:28, where the apostle Paul says, "Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather . . ." You'd think he'd say, "Instead of stealing, don't steal." But here's the opposite: ". . . rather, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give to him who has a need."

You see, working with our hands is the cure, the antidote to laziness, to stealing, and to uselessness. That's why we read in Proverbs 21 that lazy people won't work with their hands. "The desire of the lazy man kills him," Proverbs says, "for his hands refuse to labor. He covets greedily all day long, but the righteous gives and does not spare" (vv. 25–26).

You see the difference there? Lazy people are always wanting to get. They want to be on the receiving end. They won't work to give; they want to get. Ultimately, if they can't get what they want, that can even cause them to turn to stealing out of laziness. But people who are hard workers are willing to work with their hands so that they can have something to give to others. That's the heart of this virtuous woman.

So we read in 1 Thessalonians 4, "We urge you," Paul says, "that you aspire to lead a quiet life and to work with your own hands, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside and that you may lack nothing" (v. 11).

Now this is serious business, because Paul is not just saying this is something you ought to consider doing—to be hard at work with your hands in whatever tasks you have that require that. But he goes on to say in 2 Thessalonians 3 there were some in that church who were idle. They wouldn't work with their hands.

Paul said to look at our example. "[We] did not eat anyone's bread free of charge, but we worked with labor and toil night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you . . . to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us. . . . Do not be weary in doing good" (vv. 8–9, 13). That's a good word for mothers, isn't it? He goes on to say, "If anyone does not obey our words, note that person and do not keep company with him that he may be ashamed" (v. 14).

Now that's something not only to model in your home, but it's an important thing to teach your children. Your children need to learn how to work. This is something God's been speaking to me about as I've been immersed in this passage. God has really convicted my heart about the whole matter of my attitude as I work.

I would generally say that I am a hard worker. But I've found myself and have been convicted that so much of the time I make the work harder because of not doing it with a cheerful and willing heart. I have to tell you that . . . And my work may be different than your kind of work. But we all work we have to do.

I have found myself at points to be full of a lot of resentment and murmuring and discontent about the hours that are required, the effort that is required. There will be times, I have to tell you truthfully, that I'm in my study at night, late hours, long hours, thinking, Why could I not have a little more of a normal life? I don't say all this. I can't believe I just said it. But those thoughts go through my mind.

I can find myself resenting having to work hard. The Lord has spoken to me about this and said, "If you are a woman of excellence, if you're a woman of virtue, if you're a woman with godly character, then purpose to work willingly with your hands. Sit at that computer, labor with those books, or whatever it is that is my call at that moment, and do it with a cheerful and willing heart."

The verse that has come to my mind is where Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, "I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls" (v. 15) You say, "Well, that's the apostle Paul. He had glamorous work." Yeah, being shipwrecked and stoned and thrown out of town. We always think somebody else's work is more glamorous than ours. Paul said, "No matter what it costs me, I will do it gladly because the purpose of my life is to be spent for you."

That's the purpose of my life: to glorify God by being spent for you. Those of you who are wives and mothers, that's how you glorify God—by spending and being spent and being used up for others. So, you are going to do it. The question is, "Are you going to do it gladly, or are you going to do it resentfully."

Jesus said when He spoke about doing the work of the Father, "I delight to do Your will, O God." I realized as I reviewed that phrase recently, that I generally sooner or later submit to do the will of God, but often I don't delight to do the will of God. If I want to be like Jesus, then I need to pray, "Lord, give me a heart that delights to serve, that delights to work, that delights to be spent on the behalf of others. This is Your will for my life. If these are tasks of Your appointing, then help me to do it with joy. Help me to work willingly with my hands."

There's a prayer at the end of Psalm 90 that I've made my prayer many times. I just want to pray it now, and I ask you to join me in prayer. Let's offer this prayer up to the Lord.

Oh God we pray that You would "Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish [direct, determine] the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands" (v. 16–17).

And then as Isaiah prayed, "Oh Lord, You will establish peace for us, for You have also done for us all our works in us" (26:12).

So Lord, may it be You working in us. May Your loving, giving, sacrificial heart be communicated in the way we serve, in the way that we work—willingly, eagerly—with our hands. For Jesus' sake I pray it, amen.

Dannah: Your work matters to God! Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been showing us why it’s so important to do all our work to the Lord with all our hearts. That’s a quality that’s part of living out God’s good design for your life. Revive Our Hearts is passionate about helping you thrive in His design. 

This ministry wants to help women around the world not only accept God’s plan for their womanhood, but to delight in it. We’re able to do that thanks to listeners like you. 

When you support Revive Our Hearts with a gift of any amount this month, we want to thank you by sending you a copy of a Biblical Portrait of Womanhood. This booklet by Nancy is a helpful tool for understanding and living out God’s plan for your life. You can request your copy with your gift at ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Thanks so much for your support! 

The work you do matters, even when it comes to preparing the food you eat on a daily basis. Join us next time as Nancy shares why caring for your home and the people in your life is so important.

Nancy: That's what we see in verse 15: "She rises also while it is yet night, early in the morning, and provides food for her household and a portion for her maidservants." Here's the thing: godliness is not what time you get up in the morning. Godliness is doing whatever you have to do to make sure that your family's needs are met.

If you don't have to grind bread, consider that a blessing. Now, if you like to grind bread, consider that a blessing—I'm sure your family does. After tasting the bread that some of you women have made, it's real hard to go back to the store bought stuff. This passage isn't saying you have to grind your own bread. It's not saying you have to set your alarm clock for 3:00 in the morning. It's saying that the woman who has a heart for God and a heart for her family will do what she has to do to make sure their needs are met—in practical areas such as food.

This is a woman who is not slothful. She's disciplined. She lives by priorities. Keep noticing that her priorities are centered around her family and her home. I can't say it enough: this is not a woman who is living for herself. She is living for others.

Dannah: 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 unless otherwise noted.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.