Wisdom is the key to success
Proverbs 2:1-8
My wife and I are in the process of looking for a house. We started toying with the idea last week and decided to just dive in and see where it takes us... Well, in the process of looking, I have had this lingering feeling of fear. Now I know what the bible says about fear. We are not to be people of fear, but sometimes it creeps in like darkness into a candlelit room.
The fear starts as questions. IN fact,most often going right to the heart of the issue with hard questions, "what if you can't afford it? What if you get a house only to not be able to pay your bills?" The questions come like the aforementioned darkness, creeping slowly until the candle is snuffed out, then all at once it overwhelms you. Fear sets in. We have a choice in all of this, but most often we are unaware that we can make the choice.
I was praying, and have been for days, for wisdom and discernment. Trying to pray through the fear and questions. Then all at once, I realized that the fear was trying to paralyze my faith. Then I searched for the antedote. I felt like God was telling me, "seek out some wisdom." First thing I did was go to Proverbs.
We see in the verse above, "if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." (Vv. 3-5)
So what this is saying is that if you call out to God for insight and wisdom, if you then seek it from him, you don't just act content, you put your faith in action, you will get the fear of the Lord... Wait a minute, what does that mean? Wouldn't we get wisdom if we did the aforementioned things? No, God says point blank, through perhaps the wisest man who ever lived aside from Jesus himself, that you get the fear of the Lord.
Now to understand this, I decided to look up the "fear of the Lord" and as you might expect, one thing it says is actually fear. But it also says respect and reverence for God. Call it a by-product of our sin, but we tend to just look at God as though he is a great big sugar daddy in the sky. He is a consuming fire, He is a perfectly just, perfectly true, perfect in every way! There is no one like Him. Not one.
One amazing fact is that when we seek out for wisdom, and gain fear of the Lord, God gives us the ability to bypass our natural, logical brains, and go straight to the realm of faith.
Selah...
1 My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding—
3 indeed, if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the LORD gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He holds success in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.
My wife and I are in the process of looking for a house. We started toying with the idea last week and decided to just dive in and see where it takes us... Well, in the process of looking, I have had this lingering feeling of fear. Now I know what the bible says about fear. We are not to be people of fear, but sometimes it creeps in like darkness into a candlelit room.
The fear starts as questions. IN fact,most often going right to the heart of the issue with hard questions, "what if you can't afford it? What if you get a house only to not be able to pay your bills?" The questions come like the aforementioned darkness, creeping slowly until the candle is snuffed out, then all at once it overwhelms you. Fear sets in. We have a choice in all of this, but most often we are unaware that we can make the choice.
I was praying, and have been for days, for wisdom and discernment. Trying to pray through the fear and questions. Then all at once, I realized that the fear was trying to paralyze my faith. Then I searched for the antedote. I felt like God was telling me, "seek out some wisdom." First thing I did was go to Proverbs.
We see in the verse above, "if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." (Vv. 3-5)
So what this is saying is that if you call out to God for insight and wisdom, if you then seek it from him, you don't just act content, you put your faith in action, you will get the fear of the Lord... Wait a minute, what does that mean? Wouldn't we get wisdom if we did the aforementioned things? No, God says point blank, through perhaps the wisest man who ever lived aside from Jesus himself, that you get the fear of the Lord.
Now to understand this, I decided to look up the "fear of the Lord" and as you might expect, one thing it says is actually fear. But it also says respect and reverence for God. Call it a by-product of our sin, but we tend to just look at God as though he is a great big sugar daddy in the sky. He is a consuming fire, He is a perfectly just, perfectly true, perfect in every way! There is no one like Him. Not one.
One amazing fact is that when we seek out for wisdom, and gain fear of the Lord, God gives us the ability to bypass our natural, logical brains, and go straight to the realm of faith.
Selah...
Comments
Post a Comment