It was the summer of 1982 when a Southern California family journeyed north to find adventure in the great state of Alaska, a state they had dreamed about for more than four years. They had heard of streams full of salmon as big as a man’s leg, wilderness stretching as far as the eye could see and lonely highways meandering their ways down to Kenai.

While many years have come and gone since that summer, I can still remember the day we stopped at a campsite somewhere in Canada and there met a friendly Canadian lady. As she chatted merrily with my mom, she turned her attention to me and asked if I was going to Alaska to look for a wife. Being caught completely off guard, and even embarrassed, she shocked me with her assessment of the perfect Alaskan wife: One who could carry a canoe on her head.

Looking back, I am now sure that she was half joking with me, but at that point in my life, I was hoping for one a little more feminine than that. Truth is, every young man has his own idea of what he would like in a wife, but like our young ladies, he often makes mistakes along the way to wedded bliss. However, as I have already said, our society is slanted toward the female, and when our young men marry wrong, not only does it often end in divorce, but CSED, child support payments, and being labeled as a deadbeat dad. And, you are guilty until proven innocent. What then is a young man to do? The answer lies in finding a woman worth marrying, and leaving the rest of the fish in the sea for some less fortunate fisherman to catch. Believe me, when it comes to marriage, catch and release is not the way to go.

To this end, the Bible identifies three characteristics essential for a good wife.

• Beauty is only skin deep, but godliness goes all the way to the bone. Proverbs 31 says, “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”

In looking for a wife, the hardest thing for a young man to do is get past what a woman is on the outside to see who she is on the inside. The truth is, though, while a woman is born with an outside that she cannot dictate, who she is on the inside is her choice. And you want a woman whose choice is to be in a right relationship with God, because when she is right in his eyes, she will be a godly wife.

And notice that I didn’t say that she merely had to be a Christian. While godly women will be Christians, not every woman who calls herself a Christian is godly.

• Look for a woman who is not infatuated with herself. Women of today do this in the same manner as they did back in the days of the early church:  They decorate themselves. I Peter 3 says, “Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart....”

It is relatively easy to see where a woman places an emphasis, and when she places an emphasis on her appearance, it is either because she is insecure, dissatisfied, or she is looking around. But what it means in real terms for a husband is cash, and a steady stream of it. And this multiplies with the addition of daughters.

• Lastly, you don’t want a hyphenated woman. What I mean by this is that you want a woman who is willing to give up her family name for yours because of what it implies. While we live in a day where many women do this without a thought, many are opting to add yours to theirs because of the growing feministic influence in our culture. And what they are really saying by this is that they have little to no respect for their husbands.

You need to understand that there is a growing number of women out there who chafe at the idea of submitting to their husbands. Yet the Bible clearly says not only is the she to submit, but in Ephesians 5 it says for her to “reverence her husband.”

Gentlemen, pretty girls are born every day and are a dime a dozen. Godly women are made by godly parents, and are well worth the wait, the search and the cost of procurement.

Ron Hamman is pastor for Independent Baptist Church of Wasilla. Contact him at 357-4229.