Audio Transcript
We live in a culture obsessed with productivity, and we put a premium on output. The more we get done, the more successful we feel, the happier we are with ourselves. That may feel like a workable equation when you are healthy and full of energy and zeal. But this productivity equation is horribly deflating when your body literally will not let you do much of anything.
We see this tension in our reading this week. We just read Hebrews 12, where the writer rouses us to “lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees.” That’s in Hebrews 12:12, in the context of facing hostility for the faith, an opposition that threatens to drain believers of all energy and leave us in fainthearted exhaustion. A deflating feeling of having no energy to initiate anything. By stark contrast, tomorrow we read about the average day of the Proverbs 31 woman. Tireless strength. Effortless productivity. Unintentionally heaping guilt on weary moms. That’s the tension today on Ask Pastor John: When you are too weak to be productive.
Sarah, a 35-year-old mother of two who often relies on a wheelchair when shopping or out in public, listens to the podcast when she can. She writes to say that reading Proverbs 31 makes her want to cry. “It describes a woman who is constantly on her feet, planting vineyards and working with her hands, rising before dawn with incredible physical strength. But due to my own disability,” Sarah says, “I can’t do the basic things other moms do every day. Sometimes I’m stuck in bed, and I feel like I’m failing God and my family. How can I be a Proverbs 31 woman when I can barely walk?” Here’s how Pastor John answered a similar question in 2021.
The Spirit’s Sanctifying Influence
I’ve been thinking recently about the caution that C.S. Lewis gave to the person who was judging a Christian’s patience or gentleness without taking into account his natural temperament that he was born with (Mere Christianity, 207–17). The problem had arisen from the fact that there was an unbeliever who seemed a lot more patient and gentle than this particular believer. So, the critic wondered, “Well, what good is it to say that God has saved this person and is in the process of sanctifying them? They’re no better than an unbeliever.”
Suppose you have a scale of one to ten, and the one represents a person who is totally impatient and completely without any gentleness at all, a perfect hothead. And ten represents a person who is perfectly patient and perfectly gentle in all the ways we should be. Then you find that there’s a Christian who’s a five on this scale between one and ten. And there’s an unbeliever who, as far as you can see outwardly, is a seven on the scale of one to ten.
And Lewis asks, “Can you say from this that the Holy Spirit is a weaker sanctifying influence in the life of the believer than the natural influences are in the life of the unbeliever?” And his answer is no. No, you can’t say that, because as far as you know the unbeliever was born with a temperament of seven. He’s simply by nature phlegmatic in his personality, while the believer may have been born a one and is by nature a Vesuvius of bad temper so that being a five is an incredible miracle. I tell you, when I read this years ago, I was just blown away with helpfulness.
“Faithfulness always matters. The form of the faithfulness differs according to hundreds of circumstances.”
Now, I think that caution — that wisdom not to judge without knowing all the factors that shape a person’s personality and achievements — applies to lots of areas of life besides patience and gentleness. And the principle is very relevant when it comes to this particular case of our young mom with a disability. And the principle is this: God doesn’t measure the form of our faithfulness by the form of somebody else’s faithfulness who may have started from a very different place. Faithfulness always matters. The form of the faithfulness differs according to hundreds of circumstances.
Forms of Faithfulness
Proverbs 31 describes the form of faithfulness in the life of an ancient woman (that is, a woman from antiquity) in the full bloom of her health and strength. It doesn’t describe the form of faithfulness for a woman who is deaf and blind in her eighties, or a woman who’s recently married at age sixteen, just beginning to discover what wisdom is. And it doesn’t describe the form of the faithfulness of a woman with disabilities that might keep her from planting a vineyard, or putting her hand to the spindle, or rising while it is still dark, or even clothing herself.
So, a woman with such a disability must search the Scriptures to find the form of faithfulness that applies to her. And she won’t have to look far, because right here in Proverbs 31 there are beautiful forms of faithfulness she can pursue:
- Trustworthiness, not harming her husband’s reputation with an idle tongue (verse 11)
- Being financially astute (verse 16)
- Being generous with the poor as much as her resources allow (verse 20)
- Laughing at the time to come because her faith is unshakable in the goodness and sovereignty of God (verse 25)
- Overflowing with the teaching of kindness and wisdom (verse 26)
- And finally, the beauty that really counts: “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (verse 30).
Content with Thorns
I don’t discount the difficulties and challenges that test this woman’s faith as she is unable to do some of the things that other mothers do. But I would encourage her not to begrudge the thorn that God has apparently given her, at least for now. (He’s a great healer, so who knows?) For now, this thorn is like Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.” That thorn in 2 Corinthians 12:7–10 limited what Paul could do. It changed the form of his faithfulness. He will not be held accountable to be productive in the same ways. The test now is not “Would he be productive?” but “Would he be content?” That’s how the sufficiency of Christ will be magnified.
God does not put as high a premium on productivity as we think he does. He puts a much higher premium on the qualities of character, the fruits of the Spirit that you can exercise flat on your back in a hospital bed (Galatians 5:22–23). I don’t say it’s easy. I do say it’s possible. The form of faithfulness for a paraplegic, for example, is different than the form of faithfulness for an Olympic athlete. One person is given ten talents; another person is given five (Matthew 25:14–30). The form of their faithfulness is not measured by the same set of achievements.
What Delights God
I would encourage our dear friend to focus on a text like Psalm 147:10–11:
[God’s] delight is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his pleasure in the legs of a man,
but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love.
Strength and beauty are wonderful gifts, but they are as nothing — they are as nothing — compared to the fear of the Lord and the heart that hopes in God’s steadfast love.
So, when this young mother looks in the mirror or measures herself by the strength of a horse or the legs of the healthy supermom, remember the words of Samuel in 1 Samuel 16:7: “The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” There is a kind of beauty and there is a kind of strength and there is a kind of mothering that God has designed for every disabled mom who will look to Christ and trust him.
