Proverbs 31:18

“She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night.”

She perceives…..in other words; she becomes aware of, she knows by means of her senses what is profitable. This lady recognizes, discerns, and envisions that her merchandise is profitable. She ‘grasps with her mind’ that which is advantageous and that which in not.

Today there are a lot of business women and many may be Christians; for these this verse plays out in the very practical sense being as they are involved in the buying and selling of merchandise on a daily basis; but this means much more than that.

A woman of God can distinguish more than mere merchandise being profitable or not; this woman is aware of what is excellent and what is vice.

Many times my children would come in the house with a request that in of itself looked harmless, but in fact if the request were granted it would place the child in danger or at unnecessary risk.

Taken in the more practical sense, how many times is one offered a ‘good deal’ - one that others have not ‘passed up’…and yet…there is a knowing that it is not profitable in the long run?

But more to the keeping of this proverb; she perceives her own merchandise is profitable. Whether this be tangible commodities or ideas or thoughts that guide her family…she knows they will now and in the long run, be profitable for the welfare of her family. Far cry from the selfish woman that is a obsessive buyer or has no meaningful system in which to live by on a daily basis for the betterment of herself or her family.

This lady’s lamp does not go out at night…and it is not because she is reading a mystery book or romance novel, or watching her favorite television program. I do not believe that in these solemn times of history and given the seriousness of end time events, that a woman of God has any desire to trivialize the day with such waste. No, her lamp does not go out for other reasons; reasons that the dull in heart would not understand nor have in them to contemplate. To the pure all things are pure…..this lady has the Lord’s concerns on her heart - such as prayer and thus contemplating what He would have her do; she is not of the group that selfishly exhausts herself with the inconsequential.