The Wise Woman Builds Her House — Part 6 — Excellent (chayil)
*This is for women wanting to improve their marriages and not for women who are being abused and/or whose children are being abused. If that is you, please seek safety immediately.
The Wise Woman Builds Her House Series at a Glance:
1. Foundation — Our Thoughts, The Truth, and Prayers
5. S — Service-oriented ('ezer)
6. E — Excellent (chayil) (you are here)
7. Conclusion — Reference Card, Prayer
"An excellent woman [one who is spiritual, capable, intelligent, and virtuous], who is he who can find her? Her value is more precious than jewels."
— Proverbs 31:10 (AMP)
The Hebrew word for excellent here is chayil (חַיִל) — strength, capability, valor, virtue. It is the same word used for a mighty warrior, an army, a champion. The Proverbs 31 woman is a woman of valor: strong, capable, virtuous, and clothed with might from the Lord.
The Excellence of the Rock
Only God is perfectly excellent. He is the source and standard of everything we are invited into:
"The Rock! His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness without iniquity, just and upright is He."
— Deuteronomy 32:4 (AMP)
And the Son embodied excellence in human form — growing in it as He walked the earth:
"Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and men."
— Luke 2:52 (AMP)
This is the One we get to honor in the daily, faithful growth He invites us into as we build our homes with Him.
Stewards of a Good Gift
Marriage is a gift from God — He gives the wife to the husband and the husband to the wife:
"He who finds a [true and faithful] wife finds a good thing and obtains favor and approval from the Lord."
— Proverbs 18:22 (AMP)
And every good gift from God deserves our faithful stewardship:
"Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of lights."
— James 1:17 (AMP)
We have been entrusted with the honor and responsibility of being excellent — as Christ is excellent — inside the homes He has given us.
A Woman of Valor, Not Perfectionism
Jesus calls us upwards:
"You, therefore, will be perfect [growing into spiritual maturity both in mind and character], as your heavenly Father is perfect."
— Matthew 5:48 (AMP)
The Proverbs 31 woman is not excellent because of natural ability. She is excellent because she fears the Lord, nourishes her relationship with Him, and grows in wisdom over a lifetime. Let's look again at how Scripture describes her:
"An excellent woman [one who is spiritual, capable, intelligent, and virtuous], who is he who can find her? Her value is more precious than jewels."
— Proverbs 31:10 (AMP)
Spiritual. Capable. Intelligent. Virtuous. This is the texture of excellence God calls us into and equips us for through His Holy Spirit, His Word, prayer, and the body of Christ in our lives.
Excellence is not perfectionism. Only God is perfect. This is why perfectionism in us is anxious, brittle, and self-focused. It is trying to be God — which is vanity and pride: not our calling.
Excellence, however, is God-focused and fulfills this freeing command:
"Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face continually [longing to be in His presence]."
— 1 Chronicles 16:11 (AMP)
Looking to God produces steadiness, humility, and a daily pursuit of wisdom, skill, and stewardship of the home God has given you.
The excellence God invites us to cultivate shows up in four ways:
Wisdom — reading God's Word daily, asking Him for discernment, choosing growth over reactivity.
Stewardship — caring well for the home, the schedule, the budget, and the relationships He has placed in your hands.
Diligence — tending the daily details faithfully, because God sees, and because the “small” things are not small to Him.
Growth — being teachable, taking correction without defensiveness, learning a new skill when life calls for it.
The Daily Death to Self
When we would rather drift, or lose ourselves in something that adds nothing to our husbands or families, excellence requires the daily death of self that Jesus Christ has called us to:
"If anyone wishes to follow Me, he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross daily and follow Me."
— Luke 9:23 (AMP)
Dying to self is not natural to our sin nature. But it is the only path forward — and He is with us every moment to help, until Christ returns:
“I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return].
— Philippians 1:6 (AMP)
The Next Faithful Step, Then the Next
You will not master this in a week or in a year. You will grow in it over a lifetime, by the patient, loving work of the Holy Spirit. He holds all things together (Colossians 1:17) — including you, including your home, including the unfinished places where He is still at work. Take the next faithful step. Then the next. He will faithfully increase your excellence as you walk with Him:
“Now may the God of peace [the source of serenity and spiritual well-being] who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood that sealed and ratified the eternal covenant, equip you with every good thing to carry out His will and strengthen you [making you complete and perfect as you ought to be], accomplishing in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
— Hebrews 13:20–21 (AMP)
A Prayer
Lord, You are perfectly excellent. Give me wisdom. Make me a woman of chayil — strong, capable, faithful, and free — because You are. Steady my hands for the work You have placed in them today. In Jesus's name, amen.
Now, we close:
A wise woman builds her house.