Sirach 2:1-3 “So, my child, you want to serve God? Then get your life in order, respect others, and prepare your soul for the trial that will surely come. Tell your heart what to think; don’t go to sleep on the job. Bend, your ear; listen to your mind. When times get rough, keep your cool. Take a tip from God. Join hands with Him. Don’t slip-slide. Don’t go it alone. Do the wise thing; make wise choices." Today's scripture gives us some insight into wisdom and what we should be doing if we want to serve the Lord. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Wisdom For Beginners
Sirach 2:1-3 “So, my child, you want to serve God? Then get your life in order, respect others, and prepare your soul for the trial that will surely come. Tell your heart what to think; don’t go to sleep on the job. Bend, your ear; listen to your mind. When times get rough, keep your cool. Take a tip from God. Join hands with Him. Don’t slip-slide. Don’t go it alone. Do the wise thing; make wise choices."
The title of this episode is the title of the section where this verse is found in the Message Translation of the Catholic Bible. It immediately resonated with my heart. I definitely feel like I am a beginner when it comes to wisdom. I thought this verse laid things out so easily and helped us to see what sort of things we can do if we want to serve God. I felt as though they are good reminders as to what we should be doing everyday anyway.
Let’s look at them individually. First, it says that if we want to serve God, we need to get our lives in order, respect others, and prepare our souls for the trials that will surely come. When it says, “get our lives in order,” to me, that means we need to know what we are doing. We need to be living intentionally and not just going about our day haphazardly with no plan and no idea of how the day will unfold. If we say yes to the Lord He will use us and when He does it will take time to do what He is calling us to do. If we are not living intentionally it might be hard to find the time to do all He is calling us to do.
I also think it means that we should get our lives in order before we can go out and make a difference in other people’s lives. If we are struggling to take care of our house, our family, and our friends, then it might not be the right time to go out and try and take care of other people. Sir Thomas Browne said, “Charity begins at home.” Mother Theresa says, “Love begins at home.” It’s not ok to be unkind to your family and then go to church on Sunday and treat everyone else as sweet as pie. If we want to serve God first, we must get our own lives in order. Then the Lord will send us out to help others.
Next, it said, respect others. It makes me sad that we would still need to be saying this. There is such a culture of disrespect right now, and it makes me so sad. When I listen to not only my own kids but the kids at the various schools where I sub, or I read comments on social media from other adults, I am in shock at the lack of respect. If we want to serve the Lord, we need to respect all of His children, not just the ones who look like we do, believe as we do, and love as we do. God made all people, and we must respect all people, whether we agree with them or not. We are called to love our neighbors, and that begins with respect.
This next one was something I was a bit worried about when I was going through the Life in the Spirit seminar for the first time. The people who had been in the Charismatic Renewal told us to be careful what we asked for because if we asked for the Holy Spirit to use us, He would, and we might use it in some ways we didn’t expect. They said sometimes it is a wild ride when the Holy Spirit is leading. The verse above says, “Prepare your soul for the trial that will surely come.” This would also frighten me. I didn’t want to endanger myself or my family by working for the Lord. Although the enemy will indeed attack you when you are working for the Lord, you also have the Lord protecting you.
You have the Lord building you up and giving you the strength to make it through whatever the enemy is throwing at you. Sometimes, He will allow the enemy to come at you, but He will never let you face it alone. He is always right there with you, helping you withstand it. Give you what you need. It says in 1 John 4:4, “Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” Yes, the enemy may come after you or your family but the Lord won’t let Him destroy them.
I feel the enemy has come after my family because He knew I wouldn’t believe His lies. He knew I had the armor of God on, and when we know who we are in the Lord’s eyes, the enemy can't hurt us. However, I do feel he has attacked my family with drug addiction, depression, anxiety, anger, and so much more. However, I know that the enemy will not win. My children will be saved, my family and my marriage will be saved. My marriage was already saved. We were so close to splitting, and the Lord came in and gave us renewed minds and hearts for one another. God can do this for you too!
We don’t have to be afraid of what the enemy might do to us or our family if we are serving the Lord, but we do have to prepare for it. We do need to be on the lookout for it so that when we see something happening to us or those around us, we can call upon the Lord to come and protect us and give us the strength to get through all that is happening.
Next, it says, “Tell your heart what to think.” I love this because our emotions are a product of the story we tell ourselves. We need to be careful of our thoughts, and this is where the enemy can gain access to our hearts. He can tell us lies, and if we believe them, they can start to turn our hearts cold. He tells us things like, “God doesn’t love you, your family doesn’t really like you, you shouldn’t forgive that person, they don’t deserve it, and so on.” We need to tell our hearts what to think. We need to remind it of how loved we are by God and those around us.
Next, it says, “Don’t go to sleep on the job.” This is a good one: when the Lord is calling us to do something, we need to do it. I was just thinking about several things I felt the Lord said I could do to increase prayer for my boys that I haven’t done yet. I feel like this line might be for me personally today, although I am sure I am not the only one who is sleeping on the job. We may think we have all the time in the world to do what God is calling us to do, and yet none of us know if we will even have tomorrow. Tomorrow is not promised to any of us. Do what the Lord is asking you to do when He asks you to do it. This is a great reminder that I really needed to hear today!
I think I will finish this verse tomorrow as this is getting long, and I don’t want to rush through the rest and miss anything the Lord wants me to say. I think we all long for wisdom and so if we can get some tips and tricks from scripture to help us learn about wisdom then that is great. I wouldn’t want to rush it.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening today. Lord, you are amazing, and we are so grateful for all you do! Lord, thank you for sharing with us about wisdom. Thank you for teaching us what we need to do if we want to serve you. Help us to listen, Lord. Help us to learn to serve you better, Lord! We love you, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name. Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus! Three more days to sign up for the retreat! I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember Jesus loves you, just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in April 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “Look at the cross where once there hung a man beaten and bruised and condemned. It is now empty. It can no longer hold me. Remember that, my friends, when your cross seems too heavy for you, when your cross seems unbearable, it cannot hold you any more than it held me. Victory is ours.”