Wisdom is feminine – happy Mother’s Day!
Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today Mal Calladine gets into our third monthly chunk of ‘Practical Proverbs’, nuggets of knowledge that have loads of life application.
What did I like about today’s passage?
Today on this Mother’s Day, with our wider world in crazy crisis, this reading seems particularly pertinent! Man, do we need wisdom! Or more to the point, “Woman, do we need wisdom!” Because these verses show me that this vital and central attribute of God’s character, that we so need in this season, is feminine!
Chapter 8 starts: “Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? At the highest point along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand”
These elements of God’s character are clearly called feminine here. The cry of the whole of chapter 8 is that we need wisdom. And wisdom is feminine in its inherent quality. It’s challenging that in chapter 7, ‘temptation’ is also called feminine (as the 3 chapters of 5,6 & 7 complete their exploration of relationships and sex, as the first application of where wisdom and folly compete). And in chapter 9 (v13-18) ‘folly’ is also pictured as feminine. But the full, counter-acting, godly redemption of those attributes is also feminine – the wisdom and understanding we need to cope in these extremely challenging times.
The rallying cry of chapter 8 through to 9 v6 is what most grabbed me – as a call to us all to embrace wisdom. Nothing I desire can compare with her (v11); prudence, knowledge and discretion dwell there (v12); counsel, sound judgement, insight and power are there (v14); I receive love, riches, honour and prosperity with wisdom (v17,18); and her fruit is beyond riches (v19); “bestowing a rich inheritance on those who love me, and making their treasuries full” (v21)
WOW, let’s embrace wisdom, God’s partner in creation, with her promise that “those who find me find life, and receive favour from the Lord” (v35). She sets a table before me and says: “Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of insight.”
That’s a big promise to a simple guy like me.
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
It showed me the question above is limited! Because today, and this scripture, is all about being shown Mother God! That we are made in God’s image, both male and female (Gen 1 v27). And today, of all days, is the one to remember and commemorate the feminine we ‘come from’: humanly (in our earthly mothers); in our church journey (the roots of Mothering Sunday, is acknowledging and, historically, visiting the church where we were nurtured in Jesus’ bride); and in God, herself. That can sound odd to our ear, but I think today is about embracing the femininity of God.
As my wife Chriscelle, is speaking in our first ‘Online Only’ Church Service today, we have been looking all week at a lot of the scriptures that inform that understanding further. I’d encourage you to look at that resource, and have a read through of those scriptures referenced in today’s talk online, and the questions they provoke in response; which we are encouraging online community groups and support triplets to consider this week, when we each meet online in smaller groups. A link to that list of scriptures mentioned in the talk, and our suggested application questions, are here .
What am I going to do differently as a result?
Can I adapt and still sing a favourite worship song of mine: ‘You're a good, good Mother, it’s who you are, it’s who you are” and mean it?! I’ve done quite a lot of mental and emotional work in understanding God as good, in comparison to my earthly father – who wasn’t good. I don't think I’ve done the same amount of processing God as the perfection of all the female attributes I’ve experienced. My early experiencing of mothering was way better than fathering; but where do I still need to embrace God’s love as ‘storge’ – one of the 4 Greek New Testament words for love? The word that means ‘nurturing, comforting’, literally ‘breast feeding’ love.
And where do I need to affirm that journey of embracing the feminine of God in those I get to journey with? Including those who have had bad earthly experience of feminine, non-nurturing love? That the redemptive we speak of in our heavenly Father, when we consider earthly fathers, is just as true with heavenly perfection of redemptive Motherhood compared to our earthly experience?
Who am I going to share this with?
I want to get the chance to affirm every woman I can today, that they are not lesser, second class citizens, but are those who show me much more of who God is. In fact I need to acknowledge my place: when God looked for a ‘suitable helper’ in the creation story, it's the same word used for ‘helper’ that describes God himself in Psalms as our “ever present ‘helper’ in times of trouble”. So definitely those women who show that Godly, helpful strength to the weakness in my life, I think won’t mind hearing that today: my wife; daughters, mum, mum-in-law (who I call in mum-in-grace) and anyone else I get the opportunity.
I’ll look to remind the Marriage Foundations course couples of this as we meet online for the first time (especially the men!), and finally, I want to try and memorise as much of chapter 8 as I can, as a rallying cry for wisdom to inform my prayers and conversations; as people look to how respond to this global crisis.
We so need wisdom right now, and I’m so grateful it’s found in the embrace of all that is right and redemptive, comforting, nurturing and fiercely protecting in the feminine of the God to whom I entrust my life.