Day 3: Wisdom from heaven
So David and Abishai went to the army by night, and there was Saul, lying asleep inside the camp with his spear stuck in the ground near his head. Abner and the soldiers were lying around him. Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Now let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I won’t strike him twice” (1 Samuel 26:8).
Our Father, the psalmist prayed, You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed (Psalm 119:4). Yet always before us is the temptation to hedge, to compromise, to justify—to disobey.
Oh Lord God, how we need Your wisdom and discernment! Our own hearts are blind guides that lead us into pits (Matthew 15:14). Our native deceitfulness and desperate wickedness lodge deep within (Jeremiah 17:9). And when we encounter circumstances that line up with our own desires and our own agenda, we are in danger of celebrating them as opportunities from You—even though they lead us into areas of compromise and outright disobedience.
Father, give us the wisdom that comes from heaven—Your pure, peace-loving submissive wisdom, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere (James 3:17). Lead us away from the temptation into "wisdom" [that] does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic, tainted by envy and selfish ambition (James 3:15-16).
Help us not to trip over our "sleeping Sauls" by compromising, or by entertaining, excusing, and varnishing evil and ungodliness. Help us to trust You in all circumstances—for provision and protection, vindication and victory. Help us to trust that even from the mouths of our enemies would come the blessing, “May you be blessed...you will do great things and surely triumph” (1 Samuel 26:25).
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