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January 1 - December 31, 2019
Proverbs, then, give up their meaning only cumulatively. No one saying gives you the whole picture.
The point of a proverb, then, is to get rightly related to reality through hard thinking and sustained reflection. A proverb is like hard candy: If you just bite down on it, you get little out of it and may even get a broken tooth. Instead you must meditate on it until the sweetness of insight comes.
I hear you calling me to grow into a wise person who discerns what to do. Help me to answer that call, and give me understanding. Amen.
Lord, I tend to be smug about my right beliefs. I love to think I know the truth, but even when I do, I don’t know how to use it. Please bring into my life what is necessary for wisdom to grow, and then remind me that I received it from you. Amen.
So wisdom often comes through the pain of personal confrontation by friends (27:5), or from learning from one’s mistakes (26:11), or from the suffering that God judiciously allows into our lives
To become wise is to become a disciplined person, given not to impulsiveness but to self-examination, to circumspection, and to clear thinking.
Father, children need discipline even though they may rebel and resist when they receive it. An undisciplined child, however, will have a miserable life. Forgive me for not recognizing the hard knocks and disappointments of my life as your fatherly discipline. Let me learn wisdom from them all. Amen.
To be wise is to recognize multiple options and possible courses of action where others can imagine only one or two. Wisdom discerns multiple dimensions to people’s motives and character, rather than putting everyone into the binary categories of “good people” and “bad people.” Discernment is also the ability to tell the difference not just between right and wrong but also among good, better, and best.
Deliver me from both legalism and relativism—neither is wise. Give me the humility and discernment that is necessary for having a wise heart. Amen.
Do everything necessary—even bringing into my life humbling disappointments—that will teach me to care more about being faithful than about being successful. Only then will I be freed from the pride and fear that prevent true success. Amen.
As we can be moral and still be unwise, so it is possible to be very knowledgeable and yet be foolish.
And among all other things we should study, true wisdom requires deep knowledge of the Scriptures.
Lord, I spend far too little time studying and meditating on your Word, and I have no excuse. We always make time for the things we value most. So I ask your forgiveness for not loving your Word and you as you have loved me. Teach me your truth. Amen.
But the ultimate foolishness is to make anything the center of our lives besides God.
Lord, my heart so often wants to deny reality, but that is foolish. Reality in this fallen world is both wonderful and terrible. Help me see it for what it is, and teach me to walk wisely in it. Amen.
Habitual mocking will harden you and poison relationships. “To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”
Lord, help me to avoid the world’s shortcuts to looking wise—the cynical air, the inside joke, the sighs and feigned sadness about how stupid everyone is. Let me despise no one and respect everyone, even if I am correcting them. Amen.
The main mark of fools is that they are opinionated, wise in their own eyes, unable to learn knowledge or be corrected.
To become wise, the anxious must learn to be bolder, the bold to be cautious, and the chronically sunny to be more thoughtful.
Father, I see Jesus moving through life without a wrong word or false step. He knows exactly when to be quiet and when to speak, when to correct and when to affirm. How I want to be like him! Please begin to re-create his wisdom in me, through your Word and Spirit. Amen.
“He . . . deceives himself by the smallness of his surrenders. So, by inches and minutes, his opportunity slips away.”15
You are in control, and until I rest in that, I’ll be a miserable fool. Amen.
Help me to see my time, money, and social connections as given to me by you for the good of those around me. This will be hard, because my culture makes me think I’m poor and don’t owe anyone else. Don’t let me believe that. Amen.
Wisdom is developed only in experience.
It comes through first with experience and then with deep, honest reflection on that experience.
Lord God, I know far too much about the Bible that I have not prayed and obeyed into my life. Rescue and help me. Keep me from being just a hearer of your Word and not a doer of it. Don’t let me deceive myself (James 1:22). Amen.
only if we learn grace and wisdom in smaller daily disappointments will we be ready for the great ones.
Give me the real thing, the hard-won wisdom. I’m ready to do what is necessary to receive it. Amen.
There are excessive emotions surrounding things you make the functional trust of your heart, whether it’s your career, wealth, spouse, children, or some romantic relationship. You will be inordinately shaken, anxious, angry, or despondent if anything threatens them. They cloud your judgment, distort your vision of yourself and the world. Idolatries of the heart lead to foolishness in the life.
O Lord, “help me find my All in Thee” and in nothing else. Amen.
A second mark and means of wisdom is to submit to God in all your ways—every area of life—and not on your own understanding.
The third mark and means of wisdom is a willingness to take advice.
Wisdom is to see things through as many other eyes as possible, through the Word of God and through the eyes of your friends, of people from other races, classes, and political viewpoints, and of your critics.
Inordinate love of money and confidence in its power blind us, and the best way to break money’s power over us is through giving lots of it away.
Help me to give away deliberately, not impulsively. Let my giving be sacrificial, not a token. And let me do it gladly, not begrudgingly, remembering how Jesus gave not just his possessions but his own blood. Amen.
The mark of wisdom is to be ready for suffering.
You should accept your troubles as means for spiritual growth and part of the plan of our loving heavenly Father. If you can do nothing else, you can always glorify God by having a trusting attitude toward him as you suffer, rather than becoming bitter.
The good that we must give to our neighbor means practical aid for an economic or physical need.
to help me seek wisdom, capture my heart with a vivid view of Jesus setting his face to go up to Jerusalem to die for me (Isaiah 50:7; Luke 9:31). Amen.
In the end, the main way to become wise is to have a personal relationship with him to set our heart on him.
arrogance and conceit are faults “to which shrewd and clever persons are especially prone.”
Lord, my heart fears that if I am kind rather than ruthless, I will not be successful. But I see what your Word says, that humble goodness is the most practical in the end, because it walks in the same path that Jesus did, who triumphed through service and love. Amen.
Lord, I pray for my community, country, and society. There is no social order without your wisdom, and even those who do not acknowledge you are dependent on it. Give us wise leaders, not fools. Give us peace so we can joyfully serve you and our neighbor “in all godly quietness.”37 Amen.
Wisdom was with God when he marked out the foundations of the world.
godly wisdom comes from relating to God not as just a general divine being but as our creator
The logic of the gospel—that you are an undeserving sinner and yet an unconditionally loved child of God at the same time—brings a unique combination of humility and confidence that makes you wise in a way nothing else can
I am a loved failure, a righteous-in-him sinner. This is truly the beginning of wisdom. Amen.
Wisdom is essentially about discerning and forming the right relationships and rejoicing in them.
God for himself alone, and to value human beings not simply for what we can get from them but as beings who reflect the image of our maker
Next time you face a case of unanswered prayer, ask yourself: Do you love God for God himself or for the things you get from him?
