Our God-given Guide to True Womanhood & What it Means to be a Woman: 1 Peter 3:1-6
In the same way, wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, even if some disobey the word, they may be won over without a word by the way their wives live 2 when they observe your pure, reverent lives. 3 Don’t let your beauty consist of outward things like elaborate hairstyles and wearing gold jewelry or fine clothes, 4 but rather what is inside the heart[a]—the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 5 For in the past, the holy women who put their hope in God also adorned themselves in this way, submitting to their own husbands, 6 just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. You have become her children when you do what is good and do not fear any intimidation.
Godly Points for Application
- Pray that God reaches and heals the deepest parts of you that are holding you back from reaching your full God-given potential.
- Pause, slow down, and bask in thankfulness to God that He is the one who holds your growth as His daughter in His hands.
- Study and Practice humility, the fear of the Lord, and cultivating Peace (not by human means, but by Christ).
As I sit in extensive view of my personal past and testimony, I realize that during those times I fell in love with the idea of mastering the type of divine character described in the good book (the Holy Bible). I wanted nothing more than to enhance my value and my worth. I desired to appear pleasing in the eyes and sight of man. I wanted to appear acceptable to mankind and appear as if I “had it all together.” But do you know where this pursuit led me? Straight to the path of people-pleasing, insecurity, and pain—an endless cycle of striving for validation, and being easily tossed by the wind without any foundations laid of the fear and the intense love of the Lord, nor the honor and intense love of myself.
As I tear up toward the meditations of this past version of myself seeking to fill an empty void in all the wrong places, I acknowledge that during this time, I wanted to honor God in all truth and love myself deeply, but the truth is that I didn’t know how. I had become so in tuned with the deceptive flow of the fear of man, emptying myself out to be filled with the junk of this world, adapting to the systems and the visibly invisible patterns of this world, that like a sunken car with its radio turned on and submerged underwater, I could not hear the word of the Lord teaching me who I was. Calling me and pulling upon the strands of my heart to turn toward Him for the fulfilling of the wholeness of my being.
I was diligent in a studious kind of manner with the most beautifully intelligent cognitive system and the most elegantly flattering words, and yet, a heart filled with limiting beliefs that held back the power and evidence of God in me from fully manifesting Himself through my heart, my creativity, my relationship with myself, my relationships with others, and every area of my life all-around. Unlike the description in 1 Peter chapter 3, for quite some time, my beauty consisted of adjusting myself consistently both inwardly and outwardly to the liking and satisfaction of others. Other people’s idea of me became my standard instead of God’s thoughts toward me.
At a time and point in my life, I grew very tired and weary of carrying burdens that I was not meant nor designed to carry. I dropped to my knees late one night during the midnight hours and cried out to the Lord with great faith that through my genuine heart of surrender, a transformation was beginning to occur. I knew deep within the pits of my inner-being that I would never be the same because the Lord had not loosened his grip of me. He had not left, forgotten, nor abandoned me, which is something that I had never experienced from a person before. In the awareness of his tight grip of me, I had also begun to grow in the knowledge and realization that I am extremely precious and valuable. Fearfully and wonderfully made. I always say that this means that God took His time creating me, and He has taken His time creating you. He looked at what he created and deemed it good. He deemed you good dear noble woman. He deemed you worthy. I learned the significance of never again placing my preciousness and value into the hands of another, outside of the one who gave it. I had heard plenty of times before to never let anyone determine your worth, but that reality of truth had not yet entered me.
I opened my bible and confessed with my tongue (which is indeed a power source for life and death) all that God says about me. In this day and age, we hear a lot of “become the woman you want to be,” or “how to become your dream woman,” and while this is encouraging and holds a positive connotation, I realized that I did not want to become my dream woman. In fact, I’m not supposed to become my own idea of the best version of myself, but God’s. The fullness of my identity can only be reached through him, with him, and by him, and him alone. I realized that my creator holds the key to who I am and that he wants me to depend on him in order for that revelation of myself to be made clear to me and fully manifested in a manner in which is pleasing to God. I was a powerhouse walking, ignorant that I was even a powerhouse in the first place. This ignorance rests with me no more in Jesus’ name, nor shall it rest with you. But how? It’s simple actually. ACCEPT all that God has said about you. Meditate on it until it has truly and thoroughly entered you and become your reality. A reality can only become your reality if it already exists in the first place. This is God’s will for you beloved.
Okay, enough preaching. What are the two essential qualities of a noble woman? God has given us the blueprint. It is a gentle and quiet spirit. Now, quiet does not mean silent, but peaceful. These two qualities are a formula for humility, which is the space where God exalts you and gives greater grace. James 4:6 says “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
In my asking of the Lord for the secret to achieving this spirit and how exactly to cultivate this within myself, He showed me something that was plain, yet hidden in sight, and that something is Submission. 1 Peter 3:5-6 says, “For in the past, the holy women who put their hope in God also adorned themselves in this way, submitting to their own husbands, 6 just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. You have become her children when you do what is good and do not fear any intimidation.” The true key to the adoration of self inwardly as a woman, is the posture of submission and surrender. Now, if you do not have a husband (yet), submit to every authority because of their position in your life despite how you may feel. The Lord is our shepherd, which therefore means he is our overseer and authority to whom we must submit to. The greek word for submission is hupotassō, which means “to subject yourself.” You must take on a humble position to subject yourself with a good attitude in order to please God. It is not only about submission alone, but the heart posture and attitude in which we submit with. This is why submission, gentleness, and quietness are all coupled together in this scripture. If there is one thing that I have learned about God, it is that He gives us the keys that we need to open a door. He has truly given us everything pertaining to life and godliness. Some of us pray for things that we fail to realize has already been given to us so freely.
I encourage you to meditate on all that you have read in this blog post today. Fully digest it and share with me what it has done for you in the comment section below. I share this in vulnerability because of how God has freed me with this revelation. Take everything written here back to God in your quiet time, that He may also teach you more deeply of your preciousness. “You are absolutely beautiful, my darling; there is no imperfection in you.” Song of Songs 4:7 CSB.
Brittany Tucker