Wisdom 7:7 “Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.” This episode talks about some ways that God grants us wisdom. It also talks about how we don't need to earn it, we just need to ask for it. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
All We Need To Do Is Ask
Wisdom 7:7 “Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.”
We have talked about King Solomon before and how on the night before He became King God told Solomon that He would give Him whatever He asked for. King Solomon could have asked for anything and do you remember what he asked for? Did he ask for riches and wealth? Did he ask for all his enemies to be delivered into his hands? Did he ask for all the fame and power that can come with being a king? No, he didn’t ask for any of that. He asked for Wisdom so that he could be a just and fair ruler over his kingdom. When I just searched how old Solomon was when he became king it said he was 12. Can you imagine becoming king at 12 years old? That must have been so much responsibility for such a young man. He was just a boy. Even though he was just a young boy, he knew enough to pray for wisdom. I find that amazing.
I talked a few days ago about how we don’t think like God thinks. I talked about how His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. One way to help us understand God’s plan a little more is to pray for wisdom. When we are praying for wisdom we are praying that God will help us to make the right decisions. We are praying that He will show us what we need to do and how we can do it. We are praying that God reveals to us the next step, the next right thing that we should do. We need God’s guidance in what is right and wrong. We need God to give us the gift of wisdom.
One way that God teaches us wisdom is through His Word. When we read His Word, we can see what He has taught those that came before us. We can see what they have done in the past and we can learn from them. There is so much wisdom in the Bible. I mean there is a whole book of the Bible called Wisdom. This is not the only book that is full of wisdom though. Proverbs and Sirach are another two that are full of wisdom. If there is a certain subject, or topic that you are looking for wisdom about, you can search the Bible. Actually, you can search the internet and it will search the Bible for you, if you are not sure where to look. You can just type a question into the search bar and it will search the Bible for you. For instance, you can type, “What does the bible say about gossip?” The internet search will provide you with bible verses about gossip as well as articles that people have written about that subject. Give it a try, I think you will be surprised with all that you can learn.
Another way God teaches us wisdom is through our experiences. This one can be difficult at times as it is usually through out mistakes that we learn our best lessons. We can learn through our successes and our failures, however, our failures usually lead us to our successes. Well, they do if we let them. Sometimes we don’t learn our lesson through our mistakes and then we repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Proverbs 26:11 says, “Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who reverts to his folly.” This is not a very pretty picture, but I think it is an accurate picture to prove this point. It makes no sense that a dog would return to eat its own vomit. Whatever it was that came up, obviously didn’t sit well with them the first time around, why would they want to try it again? The same is true for us when we do something that we already know will not work. Why do we keep trying the same thing over and over again when its not working? Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Why do we do this? Why is it so hard for us to learn from our mistakes sometimes? I feel as though with some things we learn pretty quickly. For instance, if we touch a hot stove, we learn pretty quickly that we do not want to do that again. However, when it comes to other things, we repeat the same mistakes over and over again. For instance, I know that if I sit down to watch “one quick episode” before I do the thing I am supposed to be doing, I will get sucked in and watch several episodes and then won’t have time to do the important thing I was supposed to do. I know this about myself and recently have gotten a lot better about it. However, for years I would tell myself that I would just watch “one quick episode” while I ate my breakfast. It kills me to think how many hundreds of hours I have wasted watching TV when I knew better. How about you? Are there some lessons that God is trying to teach you and no matter how many times it goes wrong, you still keep doing it? When will we learn? When will decide, enough is enough and learn the lesson already?
Another great way that we can gain wisdom is mentioned in the verse above. “Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.” This seems so simple and yet is so profound. We know that when we ask God answers, so why don’t we think that we will get wisdom just by asking? Maybe you do know this. Maybe it is just me that struggles with this. Actually as I said yesterday, we are never alone. Some of you may already know this, but I know some of you are in the same boat as me. I tend to feel like I have to earn whatever it is I am asking for. Do you ever feel like this? This is something that God has really been talking to me about a lot lately. I ask God for wisdom, and then I try to see what prayers I should be saying or what things I should be doing. I try to take it upon myself to gain the wisdom that I am seeking. Why don’t I know that just asking God for it is enough? It says right here in the verse, “I prayed, and understanding was given to me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.”
It’s that simple. Why do I try to make it harder? Why am I not trusting that He will answer my call and grant me the gift of wisdom? When I was praying on this the other day, the story to the centurion came to mind. This story can be found in Matthew 8:5-10. “When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?” The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”
When I hear this story I am in awe of this centurion. He trusted that if Jesus said his servant would be healed then He would be healed. He didn’t need Jesus to come lay hands on the servant, he didn’t need Him to say a particular prayer. All the centurion needed is for Jesus to say that his servant would be healed and he believed it would happen. If we ask God for wisdom He will give it to us. We don’t have to earn it, we don’t have to do anything other than ask. God has told us this over and over again in the Bible, ask and it will be given, seek and you will find. I am hoping that this time around I am ready to learn this lesson and I will actually stop trying to figure it out on my own and trust that because I have asked God for wisdom, He will deliver.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we pray to you for wisdom. We ask that you help us find the wisdom in your scriptures. We pray that you help us to learn from our mistakes and not be like fools returning to our folly. We know you are the only one that can help us learn those lessons Lord. Help us to trust that because we asked you will answer. Help us to trust that there is nothing else we need to do. Your gifts are freely given and do not need to be earned they just need to be sought after. We love you so much Lord, you are truly amazing. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I hope you quest to become more prayerful this week is going well. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Although tomorrow is Thanksgiving here is America, so if you do not meet me here tomorrow I will assume you are having a great time with family and friends. Have a blessed day!