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January 1 - December 31, 2019
Lord, I am startled by this teaching that the heart of wisdom is joy and delight in things for themselves. My modern life makes me too busy to stop and ponder “the work of thy hands” until it triggers praise to my maker and redeemer. Let me take time for beauty. Amen.
It is not just willpower but a reordering of our desires that will bring wisdom.
Today we sacrifice the good of the group for the absolute freedom of the individual. The result is an increasing number of people who feel disconnected and lonely.
“Folly and sin are always parasitic of the good that God by Wisdom has made.
Many young adults are unreligious and relativistic, insisting that every person has a right to create their own moral values and no one can tell them how to live. Yet they have deep moral convictions against racism and sexism that they insist are true for everyone.44 Such moral absolutes are smuggled—they don’t make sense if there is no God and all morality is culturally relative.
Either God’s Word will be the unquestioned arbiter of truth or something else will serve that function (public opinion, your own feelings, or human scientific reasoning).
Lord, I want to make you “my fear” rather than be both intimidated and enticed by things in this world that can’t hold a candle to your power and glory. Make yourself a living, bright reality to my heart. Amen.
But wisdom requires a genuine hatred of wrongdoing, not just a calculated avoidance of it out of self-interest.
The true fear of the Lord serves him out of joy and high appreciation for who he is.
“Even if there were no hell,” this kind of loving fear “would still shudder at offending him alone.”
Do you refrain from sins mainly because you hate their consequences? Or do you refrain out of distaste for the sins themselves, as they grieve and offend God?
Lord, “give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name” (Psalm 86:11). Yes—when I do wrong it rebounds on me and I hate that. But make yourself so real to me that I long to do right and be holy for your sake, just to bring you delight. Then I will fear you truly and walk in wisdom. Amen.
Depending on God in trouble is a spiritual skill that can be learned only in trouble.
Lord, St. Augustine said our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. But I freely confess that though I believe in you, I am often discontent. Let your attributes—love, patience, power, justice, mercy—be not abstractions but comforts to me. By your Spirit make yourself real to my heart. Amen.
there is a second aspect to trusting the Lord. It means accepting what he allows to come into our lives, whether we understand it or not. It trusts him to “in all things work for the good” (Romans 8:28), even if we can’t see the whole plan.
Lord, when things go wrong for me, I get so angry at you. I don’t know why you aren’t supporting my brilliant plan for my life! But how dare I think that my plan could be smarter or more loving than yours? I repent. Amen.
Lord, I rejoice in your justice, which is my security, and your love, which is my joy.
Failure to forgive others who have wronged you demonstrates that you have forgotten how much you have been forgiven, and at what cost to Jesus
Lord, there could not be a more practical spiritual discipline than to keep you ever before me, to be always aware of your presence (Psalm 16:8). In every conversation, action, and event let me keep you in mind. That is the way of true wisdom. Amen.
To trust God is to obey him in whatever he says (January 22) and to submit to his will in whatever he sends (February 12). Here we are challenged to do this across every arena of our life—in whatever you do. That includes our work, leisure, intellectual life, inner thought life and imagination, friendships, health and treatment of our body, marriage or romantic relationships, money and possessions, relationship to church and other Christians, emotional life, and personal identity.
Lord, even though I don’t understand everything you tell me in your Word, I will obey it. Even though I don’t understand everything you send into my life, I will accept your plan and learn from it. What I just said is an enormous commitment, and it frightens me. Fortify me and strengthen me to find my all in you. Amen.
Father, recently something very difficult happened to me, and I caught myself thinking, “What good is all this prayer and Bible study if God treats me like this?” Now I see how wicked and foolish it is to think I can put you in my debt. Forgive me and change me. Amen.
The answer is there is no real knowing of God unless we know him through his Word. Otherwise we are creating a God out of our imagination.
Taken together, Proverbs 30 verses 5 and 6 teach against two equal, opposite errors: either to think that some of God’s words are outdated, obsolete, untrue or to treat one’s own insights and “revelations” as equal to the Scripture. Modern skeptics make the first mistake. Many Christians make the second mistake, lifting up their religious traditions, or their inner feelings, or their cultural preferences to the level of revelation, so they are equal with the Bible. We must do neither.
Lord, it is one thing to believe in you—to believe that you exist and that you can save us through Jesus. It is another thing to trust you existentially, moment by moment, in the twists and turns of everyday life. Help me with your Spirit to graduate from belief to trust. Amen.
Lord, I pray mercy for my friends who are indeed leaving you out of their plans and lives. No one is wiser or more just than you, and I have no right to tell you your business. But you want me to tell you my desires—and I desire that you would open their eyes and hearts to your truth. Amen.
Either Jesus will pay for your sins, if you trust in him to have paid for them all on the cross, or you will pay for them yourself. And that goes for everyone who has wronged you. That means we can leave things in God’s hands. We do not have the knowledge, the right, or the power to judge others for their sins. A crucial component of a wise life is a conviction that God works out everything to its proper end—even the wicked for a day of disaster.
Lord, I praise you—though with fear and trembling—that you are the judge of all the earth. Deliver me from the temptation to want to sit in judgment on certain people. I cannot see into anyone’s heart or into their past enough to know what they deserve. Help me put these matters into your hands. Amen.
And there is also a spiritual order. If we try to center our lives on anything but God, it leads to fragile identity and psychological disorder. It is the essence of wisdom to perceive this divine order in life and to align one’s life with
Father, when I’m tempted to do something wrong, I still tell myself that basically I can get away with it. But no one ever, finally, gets away with sin. It will find us out. Burn this truth into my heart that I might not sin against you. Amen.
Lord, my culture tells me that I can be whatever I choose, but your Word and experience show me that is not the case. My body, my talents, my location in the world—all both limit me and serve as callings from you. Help me to become the person you made me to be. Amen.
Living selfishly can feel great but catches up to us physically, relationally, psychologically.
“whatever their worldly state, the righteous are the truly rich.” Even in a life filled with suffering, Christians are justified in God’s sight, adopted into his family, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and guaranteed a place in the new heaven and new earth—priceless things.
“in the world to come, justice will be complete.”
there are times you must choose between wealth and integrity.
Give me enough joy in you to always choose the right thing rather than the easy thing.
Proverbs makes the case that because God is the creator, wise actions normally lead to good results in life. The key word, however, is “normally.” There is much abnormal about our world, so that prosperous people often are not hardworking while many poor people are. The relationship between behavior and reward is—not completely but to a significant degree—disrupted.
Ecclesiastes and Job, then, must be read together with Proverbs if we are to learn wisdom.
Lord, I live in a world that you made good but that we have marred. How wrong it is for me to blame you for what doesn’t “work” in life! Help me to trust in you and bide my time “until the world is mended.”67 Amen.
Lord, when the futility of my life begins to overwhelm me, I realize it is because I am looking only at what is “under the sun” and not at the eternal weight of glory being prepared for me (2 Corinthians 4:17). Help me to fix my eyes “not on what is seen, but on what is unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:18). Amen.
The fleeting pleasures of life are senseless, useless, and insignificant if we try to live without reference and gratitude to God.
Work does not actually, in the end, really achieve. Quickly or slowly the results of our toil are wiped away by history. The person who takes up your work after you may undo all you have done (Ecclesiastes 2:21). Second, work and achievement fail a subjective test—they never fully satisfy. Work brings grief and pain. You are up early and late to bed, often unable to sleep even at night and filled with the feeling that the work is not really all that well done.
Father, help me to use the gospel on myself to weaken the perfectionism that makes my work a burden. Give me the deep rest of soul that comes to the degree I remember I am saved by faith in Jesus, not by the quality of my work. Amen.
In this world, pleasures are fleeting. Ironically, the more you look to the things of this world to give you your deepest pleasures and satisfactions, the more frustrating they will be.
Lord, our society has rested its full hope for itself on unaided science and technology. But this will not be enough! Please preserve our social life and order with your help and grace, and let the knowledge of the Lord grow again in our country. Amen.
Ecclesiastes 9:2 depicts the good and evil, the religious and irreligious—and concludes, rightly, that under the sun the same destiny overtakes them all.
Lord, Ecclesiastes painfully provokes me to admit that you are all my hope and my only hope. Help me raise my eyes “above the sun,” constantly remembering that, while you will one day make everything right, nothing will be fully right until then. Amen.
We must remember that on this side of heaven and Judgment Day, much of life will feel vain and pointless. The first advice: Don’t let the times of darkness completely overwhelm you. This world will not last forever.
Lord, I don’t know why I am always surprised by suffering. Both your Word and common sense tell me that, even in good times, it is always on the way. Don’t let the dark times darken my heart, but rather let them teach me wisdom. Amen.
Father, when things go wrong for me, my greatest enemy is self-pity. It whispers to me that, because of my suffering, I deserve pleasures that I know are wrong. Save me from self-pity with a sight of Jesus suffering faithfully for me. Amen.
