The Price of Self-Seeking

In the book of Proverbs, the virtuous woman is not the only one woman mentioned.  One of the other women mentioned in this book of wisdom is the “contentious” or “brawling” woman (Proverbs 27:15; 21:9; 19:13).  This is the woman who is seemingly looking for a controversy or contention.  She is just waiting for a reason to get riled, and she doesn’t need much of one. 

I’ve often heard men vent to one another that they “just can’t do anything right” or that they “had just better keep their mouth shut.”  Because a contentious woman pounces at the slightest provocation, the rest of us are left tiptoeing through every encounter with her. We’ve probably all collided with someone like this before, someone for whom even a compliment becomes controversial. 

            “You look good today.”

            “Oh, you mean I don’t usually?”

            “No, I mean, that dress looks really great on you.”

            “You mean it looks great on a fat woman, huh?  You think I’m fat!”

In the Proverbs passages, a contentious woman is compared to a continual dripping.  Seems harmless enough; annoying, yes, but harmless.  I mean, who has ever been destroyed or injured by dripping water?  Yet, I can’t help but think of the legendary “Chinese water torture,” where water was continually dripped onto the victims forehead, or dripped in an irregular pattern, until the prisoner actually went insane. 

Even something as innocent as a dripping water faucet is often innocent only because we have the ability to make the dripping stop, or at least to muffle the noise.  But what if you couldn’t get the dripping to stop?  All day long and all night long, no matter what you did, the drip…drip…drip…drip persisted.  You try twisting the faucet tighter.  You try stuffing a towel into the sink, and that works for a little while, until the towel is saturated.  Then, drip…drip…drip once more.  Eventually, day in and day out, you would either stop at nothing to make the dripping stop, or you would try your best to stay away from it.  Unfortunately, that sounds like some of our marriages.

Yes, it’s frustrating when a husband appears to be escaping.  He comes home late—regularly.  He immediately runs to the television and cranks up the sports.  He doesn’t respond to you.  He lingers in another room away from everyone.  Why the seclusion?  Perhaps, the water is dripping, and he can’t get it to stop.  In two different verses of Proverbs 21, the Bible says that it is better to dwell in the wilderness or in the corner of a housetop than with an angry, contentious, brawling woman.  And many men do.

But the dripping can be stopped, though it must be stopped from the inside.  A contentious woman, realizing the damage she is causing to her home and to her family, must be willing to turn to God for the answer.  When a woman insists on everyone noticing her needs, when she comes to her own defense and fights her own battles, it’s guaranteed every time that someone is going to get hurt.  The answer is forgiveness—trusting God, the righteous Judge, to handle my circumstances while I focus solely on “becoming.”