Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Day 4. Crown

Proverbs 12:4
A wife of noble character is her husband's crown,
but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.

I once heard someone say, "When your wife is for you, it doesn't matter if the rest of the world is against you. When your wife is against you, it doesn't matter if the rest of the world is for you." For some reason that stuck in my head. But this verse is a lot stronger than that simple platitude.

"Decay in his bones" is a pretty graphic description of how invasive marital disharmony is. It's not like you have a bad marriage but can shake it off when you go to work or when you are hanging out with friends or shut the front door of your house and go out into the world.

It gets inside you, it flavors your every thought, tempers your actions and attitude. On the converse, a wife of noble character is to be celebrated. I love that it doesn't say, "A wife of noble character should be treasured forever quietly in your heart."

Relating the wife to a crown feels like a very public declaration of her beauty. The husband isn't hiding the fact that he has a noble wife. If you walked around wearing a crown all day, it would be the first thing people see. You'd be proud of it and vocal about it. So if you have a wife of noble character, shout. Sing. Let your world see your crown.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ayyy - MEN!

Donna said...

Jon......

good.......

now, go kiss your wife!!

L.C.T. said...

What a beautiful thought - thank you for sharing!

Ed said...

Bit of a theme going on here today between 97secondswithgod, SCL and Matt over at thechurchofnopeople (okay, matt took an entirely different approach).

One thing about a crown. It's much better than a trophy. You can wear a crown and it makes you look awesome. A trophy you just sit on a shelf and look at.

My wife is a crown I wear proudly. Maybe a little tarnished at times from not taking good care of her and dented from being dropped a time or two, but awesome all the same. God made her just for me.

Anonymous said...

Doesn't this figure? This verse comes on a day when my husband and I are carrying a little decay in our bones...just an argument, I guess, but I just can't shake that everything seems off when there's something between us.

Ed's right - God made us for each other. Why do we fight that sometimes?

Kari said...

First time commentor here. Thanks for your simple yet powerful revelations.
God Bless.

Kendra Golden said...

If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

I'm glad my husband Brannon embraces that. He did something so awesome just yesterday to show that he values me like the crown jewels. (Although my favorite crown has a gecko on it named Stevie.)

Anonymous said...

Good on ya, Jon!

Strangely, this made me laugh at myself a little bit because I almost sent it to my husband's email so he could read it...but then I thought, "Would that be noble?" Ha! You can always trust your own humanity to call you out in the end.

Thanks again for another fabulous post.

Alison said...

You know your wife will never let you forget this post.....she should buy you a crown for Valentine's Day, just in case. Or maybe she could borrow a tiara from the girls - I'm sure there's one floating around that house somewhere.

On a separate topic.....I LOVE what you're doing with this site this month. Really cool idea, but I'm disappointed a bit. I expected some Song of Solomon during February!(even if it didn't have pictures) :)

Jake said...

You break things down so wonderfully. Great post man.

Anonymous said...

I put these verses as my Facebook status, and no other verse has received any comment.

One of my friends said "To prevent bone decay drink plenty of milk, do light weight bearing exercises and spend time in the sun."

Sounds like the best job for a man with a disgraceful wife is a dairy farmer! Funnily enough, her sister is married to one :P

I'm not married, so I'm not going to rush into a relationship of bone decay, I'm going to keep an eye out for a crown :)

Anonymous said...

That was a beautiful take on an awesome verse.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful post, ProdJon. I absolutely have a noble and beautiful wife and you've encouraged me to celebrate her more. Thanks.

Sylvia Goode Basham said...

Been at the hospital a couple of weeks with my mom, so just now catching up on 97 seconds. This is great! I'm speaking to a group of young moms next week on safeguarding marriage...do I need to get permission to use this post in the message? Of course, I always give credit where credit is due, unless I forget and think I thought of it myself :-) But I'm sure I won't forget with this post since I'm not usually this brilliant.

Terrace Crawford said...

I'm lovin your content Jon. I've been sitting here reading each post. Good stuff.

--Terrace Crawford
http://www.terracecrawford.com
http://www.twitter.com/terracecrawford