Sin is the only thing that will keep a woman from becoming a godly wife…It is failing to trust in and do what God’s Word says. Sin is wanting to do things her own way rather than God’s way. It is presuming God will help her even when she is neglecting His truth. Sin is thinking she can get by without God’s help…When a wife trusts in Jesus Christ as her Savior and Lord, He saves her from the death grip of sin. She is no longer a slave to sin. (The Excellent Wife, p. 6)

The problem of sin is discouraging. Christians are free from the “death grip” of sin, but we will struggle with it until we are in the presence of the Lord. I remember a time in our first year of marriage and I was face to face with my sin and I felt hopeless. Marriage can have a way of magnifying our faults and I came to a point where I just cried out to Him, “Lord, I can’t do this, I just have too much sin!” Maybe you’ve come to a place like that before, where you consider all that you have to do and be as a wife and just think, “I can’t even do this!” I know that for me I had allowed my sin to grow so that self become so huge that taking the next step of obedience seemed impossible.

But John 14:16-17 became my hope later that day and I recall it regularly since:

“And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever, that is the Spirit of Truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because he abides with you and will be in you.”

We can look at the godly example we have in Proverbs 31 and feel very overwhelmed by it. Twenty traits describe this excellent wife–trusted, kind, fears the Lord, blessed by her children, careful, praised, not afraid, worker with hands, wise, generous, good to her husband, of exceptional worth, and respectful to her husband. Most of us probably look at this list and think , “Who can be that excellent?” The key is that we don’t do it alone. We are called to be our husband’s “helper” and God has given us a “Helper” that is with us and leading us along this journey, now we need to follow…