Day 4: The way of insight
"Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of insight” (Proverbs 9:6).
Heavenly Father, “To [You our] God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are Yours" (Job 12:13). Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit (Psalm 147:5).
You , O Lord, are the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9), Alpha and Omega, the God who is, and who was, and who is to come (Revelation 1:8). You are God from everlasting to everlasting, and to You belong all the storehouses of knowledge and wisdom and insight.
You made us in Your image, and You endowed us with great intellectual capacity, and with the gifts of reason, logic, and understanding. But when sin came into the world and caused us all to fall short of Your glory (Romans 3:23), human intellectual powers became distorted, marred, and limited. And throughout history humans have lived in constant cycles of unwise, selfish, and unjust decisions that have fueled war, strife, famine, and a host of social, economic, and political evils.
Yet You constantly call us to godly wisdom, beaming its message where all can hear: “To you, O people, I call out; I raise my voice to all mankind...Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her (Proverbs 8:4, 10-11).
Omnipotent God, You know the benefits of wisdom for our restless, troubled, anxious world with its crumbling structures and broken systems:
With me [wisdom] are riches and honor, enduring wealth and prosperity. My fruit is better than fine gold; what I yield surpasses choice silver. I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice, bestowing a rich inheritance on those who love me and making their treasuries full (Proverbs 8:18-21).
You invite us to ask You for the wisdom we lack, and You give generously to all without finding fault (James 1:5). You have promised in Your word, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My loving eye on you (Psalm 32:8).
O Father, give us receptive hearts and teachable spirits! Deliver us from the pride and arrogance that sets human understanding over godly wisdom. Cleanse and heal our intellect, our reason, our logic, and our understanding from the blindness and limitations of sin.
Help us to make sound decisions in our individual lives and in our areas of collective responsibility—our homes, our worship, our jobs, our communities, our gatherings. Teach us to leave our simple ways and walk in the way of insight.
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