“And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” — James 3:18
Dearest Daughters,
Something my dad once told me has stayed with me for all these years. He said righteousness is when your thoughts, your words, your actions, and your relationships all line up with each other, and with God’s purposes. Being whole becomes the goal rather than just “doing the right thing.”
Rightness and accuracy are not righteousness! Righteousness always brings peace, so where peace is lacking, we should question our righteousness. Righteousness restores healing and wholeness; it changes conflict to peace and fragmentation to wholeness. The apostle James wrote, “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:18).
But this kind of righteousness doesn’t happen automatically, because we say we are a Christian. The apostle John said, “He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous” (1 John 3:7). Did you catch that? It must be practiced. That means it takes effort and intention. We must make deliberate choices, day after day, until we become transformed by the practicing.
It’s easy for a Christian woman to say with her mouth, “I submit to my husband.” But is her tone submitted? Is her timing under the dominion of Christ’s lordship? How does her inner posture look? What if her words say yes, but her actions are a no? When these things are out of sync, submission becomes a pretense instead of righteousness. Scripture says, “Let love be without hypocrisy” (Rom. 12:9). So it’s frightening to realize that we can be hypocrites by appearing loving while withholding true love in the heart.
Dissonance is created by behavior being out of sync with the inner attitude, and it is these cracks in integrity that drain out all our faith. We can appear to be submissive, but the heart is actually in a subtle form of rebellion. It is a kind of guerrilla warfare that may manifest as sarcasm, cold silence, or thinly veiled criticism. And over time, these little “terrorist attacks” nibble away and exhaust the strength of a marriage.
Relationships are the bricks and mortar of the kingdom of God. So if righteousness means being in right relationship, it cannot be reduced to simply making the right moral decisions. It means being rightly fitted into His temple, and in right relationship with God and with one another.
John says plainly, “Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10). In the end, we won’t be judged on how many arguments we won, how many facts we got right, or how clever our reasoning was, but on how we loved.
When you stand before the Lord at the end of your life, do you really think He will check whether your scheduling was better than your husband’s? Was this meal more tasty than that? Was this vacation more suited than that? Should we have used this curriculum over that, or even chosen this vocation rather than that? No. He will ask whether you surrendered yourself, your ambitions and agendas for love. Did love win in every corner of your marriage? The attitude of the heart is what God is looking at.
Paul says, “The only thing that counts is faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6). So yes, the small things may matter, vacation plans, daily routines, parenting decisions, but what matters more is the spirit and attitude we take into those discussions. Are we building a temple of peace or bulldozing our house to make a point?
“The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands” (Prov. 14:1). I often think about that verse when I feel the urge to “set something straight.” There are ways to share a concern that don’t fracture unity and ways to make a suggestion or appeal without being manipulative.
Remember, we’re part of something much larger, so what you do in your household has the potential to affect the whole of God’s purpose. Scripture says we together are God’s temple, and His Spirit dwells among us. And it gives this sobering warning: “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person” (1 Cor. 3:16-17; Eph. 2:21-22).
That means the way we treat one another, especially those closest to us, should be brought into the temple, into the holy place where God reigns. Do not destroy that temple.
Does righteousness mean you can never speak up, never ask questions or express concern? Of course not, but it does mean asking this: Am I building or am I breaking?
Let me offer a small analogy. If your cabinet door is crooked, you don’t burn the whole kitchen down. But how many times have we let a frustration spiral into something truly destructive? How often has our own ego impelled us to have the final word when God’s love would’ve asked us to surrender a little control for the sake of unity and love?
I remember a story about a young couple who lived this out in a beautiful way. They had planned a short trip to visit relatives. The husband chose the timing, but the wife felt uneasy about leaving then because of important community activities at home. She suggested that perhaps they should wait, but he was convinced his plan worked best for both family and work. After wrestling in prayer, she felt the Lord say, “Let it go. In the bigger scheme, this doesn’t matter. Trust Me.” So she chose to submit cheerfully, planning the trip and enjoying it, even though she still suspected that their timing might be off.
Sure enough, while they were away, some circumstances came up that made him restless and wish he were home. She noticed, but she didn’t say anything, trusting God’s order. When they returned, to her surprise, he went to speak with her father about the trip. It was the first time he had ever initiated such a conversation, and it opened the door to a mentoring relationship she had long prayed for.
Had she insisted on her own way, they might have been home for those events and the trip might have been “better timed,” but that deeper bond between her father and her husband may never have been formed. What looked like a misstep was, in God’s hands, a step toward something far more important, new relationships, which led to a ministry. Only God sees the whole picture. I should know, for I was the wife in this story.
Righteousness never glorifies self, but it seeks peace. It honors God’s design even in the small and unseen circumstances. This can be the radiant strength of a godly woman.
Let’s keep practicing! It won’t always come easily, but it will always be worth it.
With all my love,
Mom