It's More Than You Think

Recently my daughter asked me to watch this YouTube video made by a male student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. We put it up on the TV screen ... hey, it's getting hard for me to see on those small computer screens. This is what I saw. Take a look.this one’s for the Rahabs that God redeems,for the Ruths that dare to go to the fields,for the Esthers that became queens,for the Deborahs that exercised judgement,for the Marys that said, “Be it unto me,”for the Sarahs who bore in old age,for the Hannahs who never stopped praying,for the Tamars who dared to obey God above man,for the Lydias who believed,for the Miriams who sing songs of deliverance,for the Leahs who went unloved,for the Rachels who were waited for,for the Annas who waited on God,for the women at the wells,for the women who go to the empty tomb,for the women who stand by the cross,and even, yes even, the women of Proverbs 31.to tell you that i have grown tired of a simple and trite faith,a faith that is reducible to twenty-one verses of Scripture,as if the sum and breadth of a woman created in theImage — the Image —could be reducible to three hundred and twenty words,that the whole that it is to be Woman could be no morethan a handful of phrases and common gracesand that wife and mother were the only titlesthat a woman of faith could carry with pride.do you hear what i’m saying to you?i’m saying that you have been madein the image of God and while Proverbs 31may be a beautiful representation of a certainkind of woman with a certain kind of faithit is only a certain kind and not the kind.for if we believe the whole of the Scripturewe must believe that God hath made everythingbeautiful in its time such that all the womenof the Scripture from Eve to Lydia, in their diversity of forms,are also to be considered exalted and praisedand that God in His mercy has made us allfor diversity and journey.and to follow does not mean to take hold of a singlepassage of the Text and strip it of context and call thosewho follow it the ones who are holy.no!holy is the description of those men and women alikewho take the whole of the Text and the whole of their Godand chase after Him into the wide-reaches of His creationand grow and shift and change and look not to circumstanceor statusor positionto determine who they are, for they know of Whom they are,and that, for them, is enough.i say, this one’s for the sisters:this one’s for the woman called to be celibate.praise God, He is bigger than Proverbs 31.this one’s for the woman who can’t have children.praise God, He is bigger than Proverbs 31.this one’s for the wife and mother,exemplifying all the qualities of Proverbs 31,I imagine you would agree,praise God, He is bigger than Proverbs 31.under the authority of our one Creatorthat when i imagine the kind of woman i hope to marryshe is not found in a single place of Scripturebut is marked by the imprint of hundreds of pagesof a life lived in the fullness of the Holy Ghost,a woman who dares to be what God has called her to beand is so in love with Him that the whole of His Wordis her delight and that her fullness is not contingenton twenty-one lines of qualificationbut on her certainty in her Maker.because, as I have said, this one’s for the sisters.and wife and mother,daughter and nun,i say alike:bless you who pursue Him,bless you who long for Him,bless you who dare to serve Him,bless you who spur men to be better unto Him,bless you who challenge all to honor Him,bless you who dare speak the name of Jesus as if you knew Him.there is nothing more precious than that she knows Him.this one’s for the sisters. I don't know about you but I tend to talk a lot, to anyone, including the TV. As the video played, I nodded in agreement and said a whole lot of  u-hums along the way. I was thrilled to hear a young man declare that women are more than society's shallow definition as depicted by Victoria Secret.But here's the kicker, my daughter said, "Yeah mom ... that's good stuff, ... but listen to this young man's poem in response to how he views women."this one’s for the sisters.oh yes, this one’s for the sisters.i am here to make a confession before you,this one’s for the sisters.are you hearing me, sisters in Christ?and this one’s for the sisters.journey, because our one Christ called us to followthis one’s for the sisters.it’s a simple thing, really.and this one’s for the sisters.so let me say in boldness as a manso to widow and orphan,because of all the things i could ever hope for in a woman,and that is why, i return to this:—by Preston Yanceyhttp://seeprestonblog.com/Here was my daughter teaching me something I had taught her for years. You can't just look at one verse or passage, you have to look at the whole of Scripture. When we do this, we usually find it's so much more than we thought.We do this you know ... make Truth so much smaller, less than it is. And even though I give a shout out to the young man starting the Proverbs 31 Woman Movement, we do have to pause and realize we, women (and men), can't be boiled down to a passage. Who we are is way more than that. When we keep who we are in context of the whole Scripture it gives us women (and men) the opportunity to be more than what we are labeled. My daughter reminded me of that.