I’m not ashamed to say I don’t always have it together and sometimes, I need advice. There is no shame in asking for advice/help. In this modern day, some ladies of my generation and younger seem to no longer value the opinions of the older women in their lives. What we used to would have called Mom, Grandma or a dear older friend for advice on, we now pick up our phone and google. While googling things isn’t wrong, a lot of times, we miss out on so much life experiences, stories, and wisdom we could glean from the older women. Believe it or not, most of the time, those older ladies do know more than you and I...
One gentleman told a story of when he was young, he believed he knew better than his father. This man’s father in all of his wisdom told him - “Son, I have been 20 years old before, but you have never been 50 years old. There are some things that you just can’t know because you don’t have a wealth of life experiences yet. Some things you learn by experience alone.”
The Lord also knew the younger generation could greatly benefit from instruction from the elder generation before them.
Titus 2:3-5 [3] The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; [4] That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, [5] To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
God wanted the older ladies (the ones that were true, Godly, holiness ladies) to teach the younger ladies how to conduct themselves, how to love their husband, how to train their children, how to be submissive, how to keep their homes, how to talk/walk.
Why, in today’s world, that concept is almost a mockery! My generation and younger have got this mentality that we don’t need anyone to teach us anything. Have you heard this saying, “I will teach myself—I don’t need anyone else to tell me how to...fill in the blank” ? “Or I don’t have to ask for advice—I’ll just google it”
Unfortunately, a lot of the younger generation have spurned the old time ways for new modern paths! I’ve heard stuff like “that’s for old fogeys”; “that’s not relevant for today!” ; “it’s a different time”; “you all don’t understand the stuff we deal with today! ; You all didn’t fight the same kind of battles” and so on... or “There is so much more pulling at us today than what you faced.”
But let me remind you that although the battles may not be exactly the same, the Devil is.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 [9] The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
King Solomon himself declared there is nothing new under the sun. Yes, the battle may have a different name but in reality, the root causes are all the same. (Lust, anger, jealousy, bitterness, greed, envy, malice, strife, gossip, hate, unkindness, discontentment, etc) so saying that the older generation doesn’t understand our dilemmas is doing them a great injustice. Just because they didn’t have the same level of technology and advancement as we do today doesn’t mean their experiences and advice are any lesser and can’t be useful to help us fight our present day battles now. There were inventions and new stuff that came out in their day. Their battles with the flesh and with the Devil was just as trying as to them as the modern day battles are for us.
Saying all that, we must realize that aged, wise, Holiness ladies are a treasure! God, himself, values a virtuous woman far above rubies in worth!! if you have one (or even better, several! ) in your life, you are most blessed! Don’t buck against their advice or think you know it all and can handle life by yourself. Be humble. Be teachable. Ask them for counsel. Learn from them! God ordained that we, younger ladies, learn from the older, wiser, more experienced ones! Don’t ashamed to say I need advice! I need help! There is no shame in asking for advice/help. In fact, God will richly bless you for following His Word and being “under authority”.
We don’t know it all—and that’s totally okay.
No one expects you to automatically get married and suddenly, overnight, you morph into this mature, responsible, all-knowing, perfect wife. That doesn’t make you inferior or lesser. You have never been in this position before. Think of it as on the job training. If you begin a new job with little to no prior experience, you would welcome another more seasoned employee to help you learn the ropes. You wouldn’t get mad at him if he recommended a better way to do something or how to make something run even smoothly. You would welcome the advice!
So why is it that we ladies feel like we are being attacked or judged if someone more experienced happens to see something we may need improvements on and recommends a better way to handle something or gives us advice? Our flesh wants to buck against being advised or counseled at all. We feel the need to “be in control”— we don’t want anyone else to “tell us what to do”...
But dear sisters, we are actually cheating our own selves. We could greatly benefit from the Godly instruction of an older, more seasoned, woman of God. She has been in your position before, you have not yet been in hers. I have found that listening to the elders’ experience and heeding to their warnings and instruction will actually save me from falling in the same pitfalls... I don’t have to learn the hard way!
It is much easier to learn from someone else’s example than to have to learn on your own.
1 Peter 5:5 [5] Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.
God almost insinuates here if I am reading it correctly—that if we don’t submit ourselves to the elders and learn from them with a humble heart/spirit, the root cause of why we refuse to do so is simply “pride”. We all know pride is wrong — it is sin!! but a lot of times, we allow it to creep in unaware. God says He resisteth the proud! I don’t want God to resist me! The Word also goes on to say that He giveth grace to the humble. I want to be in that humble crowd! Heaven knows, I need His grace!
For you see, relationships, themselves, are so important! God made us social creatures -As Christians, we weren’t made to be individuals —we were made to be a body!! We must allow God to cultivate connections between each other! Yes, you may be able to pick up the phone and google whatever you wish and probably get a decent enough answer but when you pick up the phone and call a more experienced relative or friend, you are gaining far more that basic knowledge— their life stories, experiences, and advice color the information with much more beneficial material than a simple google answer. You also build rapport and connections with that person.
If there is anything that I see in practice today, it is the Devil has mastered the art of getting us isolated and away from those that could help us. Like the old illustration of the herd of animals in the African savannah —as long as they stay tightly in a herd all together, it is much more difficult for a lion or wild beast to attack them. The lion actually prowls around looking for the weak one—the straggler—the one who is farthest away from the herd. He then proceeds to stalk the animal, getting it disoriented, and farther away from the
herd—which is it’s safety! Once, he has sufficiently cornered the animal, he then pounces! And the animal is destroyed. All because the little animal forgot about there being strength and safety in numbers !
The same is true in our Christian walk! The Bible even refers to Satan as a roaring lion in 1 Peter 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Another thing I found interesting is that the verse about the roaring lion seeking to devour us is only 3 verses down from the verse #5 which is instructing us younger to submit to the elder. Is that simply coincidence? I don’t think so.
God knew that alone, we are naturally weaker! It’s just a fact of life. Ecclesiastes 4:12b...
a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
But together, we can be strong!
Psalm 34:3
O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.
Psalm 55:14
We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.
Psalm 133:1
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
The Bible is full of verses promoting togetherness and unity. We need each other!!
We must as one body stand against the tide of unGodliness in this world!
We need sisters, both young and old, to stand shoulder to shoulder, and push back against this culture! we need Holy women of God to rise up in this hour and mentor the younger generation! We must preserve the heritage of Holiness and Bible living that has been handed down to us!
Younger ladies, let’s not rebel against instruction and counsel from those who have already walked the path we are now headed down! We must embrace the truth! Embrace humility! We need teachable spirits and tender hearts! One day, we may be the elder women ourselves! We must get it right! We must learn from those before us! We must pass on this banner of Holiness to our children!
The older women have the generational responsibility to share their experiences with the younger women. They are to tell the stories of their victories as well as their failures and show how their stories are part of God’s grand plan of redemption.
So where are these older women I need to look to? you may ask....
I believe they are sitting in the pews of your church and mine, they are in our families, they are our moms, our grandmas, our mother-in-laws, our friends, our pastors’ wives, our aunts, our cousins, our neighbors, etc.
Look for a woman who is Biblically sound. Watch how she treats her husband. Observe how she deals with people. Watch how she behaves in public. See how she worships in church. Listen to her conversation. If her life lines up with the Word of God, ask her advice. Listen to her instruction. Learn from her experiences....Mold yourself after her.
Even Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 11:1–Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.
A true Godly woman isn’t perfect and she, too, needs God’s grace. She will show you by example that if you make mistakes, don’t despair. Just dust yourself off and get right back up again. She will guide you in your pursuit of Godly living and Biblical womanhood!
I am so thankful for the Godly women that God has allowed me to learn from. I have gleaned so much wisdom and knowledge from their experiences. They have saved me scars and heartbreaks by seeing down the road and cautioning me against it. They weren’t confident in their own knowledge and wisdom alone to instruct me but they relied on God to guide them and in turn, they guided me. I’m forever grateful for those aged women in my life!
So, how about it? Younger lady, will you submit to an older, more seasoned woman for Godly advice/ mentoring? Will you be humble and submissive? Will you have a tender heart and a teachable spirit?
Older woman, will you consecrate your life as a living example of God’s goodness ? Will you teach others His ways? Will you share your own battle victories/defeats/comebacks? Will you disciple someone else to pursue Biblical womanhood in the beauty of holiness?
These are questions only we can answer ourselves... will we commit to further the cause of Biblical Holiness womanhood? Will we return to traditional family values? or will we continue to conform to the world’s mentality and be our own person and do things our way ? ...
choose you this day.....
But as for me, I choose the Bible way!
It will work every time !
-Tiphanie ❤️