Clothed with Scarlet

“She is not afraid of snow for her household,
For all her household is clothed with scarlet” (Proverbs 31:21).

How many of you have a “sock basket” hiding in your laundry room? We do! The sock basket is the place where single socks go when we’re folding, mostly because we’re too lazy to look for a match. The pile of socks in the basket grows and grows (and the number of clean socks in our dresser drawers dwindles and dwindles) until we finally decide to match socks. By then, it’s quite a job!

Of course, Murphy’s Law declares that socks are always missing completely from our dresser drawers on days when we need to go somewhere!

“Mom, I don’t have any socks!” (This is shouted 30 seconds before we’re supposed to go out the door, and it’s followed by frantic digging through the sock basket.)

Did you know that in past centuries, socks were made from an elastic, wool fabric called “scarlet”? This material could be in any color, but the most common color was red. (Enjoy an interesting history of socks here.)

Our Proverbs 31 woman obviously didn’t hunt for socks on the first cold day in the fall. “All her household are clothed with scarlet.”

How nice it is to be prepared! Whether it’s socks, cooking, finding our shoes, or teaching a class, life is so much nicer when we’re prepared.

God says that our feet should not only be prepared for cold weather; they should also be prepared to take the gospel to the world.

“[Having] shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15).

Sometimes an opportunity to share Yeshua the Messiah presents itself, but I’m not ready. In my mind, I’m scrambling around, trying to figure out what to say.

Sometimes I’m not ready to share the gospel, the “good news,” because my heart isn’t really resting in God’s peace. I have head knowledge of what He’s done for me, but I haven’t applied that knowledge to my life. I am worrying, fretting, or grumbling (rather than allowing God’s peace to fill me). When someone else comes along who needs God’s peace, I’m not prepared to share it… because I’m not experiencing it myself.

God says we’re to be ready to “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). How about you? Are you prepared to share the gospel, no matter the season?

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture in this blog post taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.