True & Beautiful Things About the Bible--Old Testamentಮಾದರಿ

Proverbs: How to Be Good at Life

What’s on your to-do list for today? No doubt it includes a chore or two, emailing or texting someone, paying some bills, taking care of your pet, getting a little exercise, and all of this before or after work. Familiar? It’s all so daily.

In between all the tasks, your thoughts may also turn to your relationship with God. You may be praying about something. Or asking for help for that difficult conversation or trying to trust Him for that big expense. You might also be asking Him to heal your body or spirit, or to show you that your work matters somehow.

These things are what Proverbs is all about. It meets us where godly and ordinary converge—which they do every day. Wisdom is seeing the ordinary with God’s eyes. Proverbs 9:10 says it begins by acknowledging God’s proper place in the universe and in your own life. This wisdom is the same skill God used to create life itself; He is the artist creating something beautiful.

Speaking of something beautiful, the one who trusts Jesus with their lives asks Him to show up in the eternal and everyday details, because they know that in Him are “all hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3). Trusting Jesus begins and endures by trusting His wisdom.

But wisdom doesn’t happen all at once. It percolates. Age doesn’t guarantee wisdom either—you can be a wise youth or an old fool. Wisdom develops by what you allow to slow-drip into your spirit.

This alone is a good reason to read a chapter of Proverbs every day. Read one a day according to today’s date (if today is the 15th of the month, read Proverbs 15.) As you do, underline or highlight a phrase or two to think about through the day.

For example: As you plan for that difficult conversation you need to have today, notice and ponder these phrases pop from Proverbs 15:

·A soft answer turns away wrath; A gentle tongue is a tree of life (15:1, 4)

·A word at the right time—how good it is! (15:23)

·The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer (15:28)

Listen to God’s Word today; let Him speak into your spirit a slow-drip at a time and out will come something beautiful.

Next: Life under the sun.