WORKETH WILLINGLY WITH HER HANDS – Proverbs 31:13
Proverbs 31:13 She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
A virtuous individual is one who is diligent. When others look at you, do they understand you to be a diligent individual or do they think you are lazy. In Proverbs 6, we are instructed to look towards the ant to see diligence. The ant does not have a leader, but it works diligently to ensure that it has food to eat throughout the year.
Are you diligent to get up early each morning to ensure that you have time to do your devotions before you go to work? Are you diligent at work so that when others look at you, they know that there is something different about you? Are you diligent at home, working with a joyful attitude seeking to serve all whom you come in contact with?
If you are in business for yourself, you understand the importance of being diligent. If you are not diligent, then you will not eat. However, while you can make the correlation between working hard and financial remuneration, many people have a hard time seeing the correlation between being diligent in their Bible studies and the positive effect it has upon their life.
Your spiritual health should be more important to you then the dollars in your bank account. Everything in this world will soon be over and your relationship with God will be all that you have on judgment day. If you have a terrible relationship with God, then you will have done many things that are displeasing to HIM and you will be accountable to HIM. However, if you fear the Lord and diligently studied the word of God in order to understand how you are supposed to live your life, then come judgment day, you will have less to fear.
An individual who is diligent in serving God will naturally be diligent in their daily work. However, the reverse is not always true; a person who is diligent in their work is not necessarily diligent in their daily Bible studies.
Why do you think David had faith that God was going to deliver Goliath into his hands? It was not because he was diligent in watching the sheep of his father. David had spent many hours alone with God and had developed a heart after the heart of God. It was because of his relationship with God that David was able to speak boldly to the man who desired to kill him.
Do you have the faith of Daniel who knew that he could be thrown into a den of lions and God would protect him? Remember, Daniel was faithful to pray three times a day. It was because of the diligence of Daniel that he understood that God was not finished with him yet and as such, he could peacefully go into the den of lions knowing that the lions could not touch him.
The reason why you do not have the faith of Peter to walk on water, or the faith of Moses to part the Red Sea, or the faith of John to heal a lame man is because you do not have a personal relationship with God. Yes, you claim to serve HIM. Yes, you do spend some time reading the Bible and praying. However, your relationship with God is not what it is supposed to be. You spend more time worrying about the things of this world then you spend on the things of God.
You need to be diligent to put the things of God first in your life. As you add knowledge of the ways of God, your relationship with God will grow. The greater your relationship with God, the more expansive your ministry will be because not only do you know how to hear the still small voice of God, but you also have the power of God in your life.