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Psalm 31

12 May

The Sayings of King Lemuel

31 The sayings of King Lemuel contain this message, which his mother taught him.

2 O my son, O son of my womb,
    O son of my vows,
3 do not waste your strength on women,
    on those who ruin kings.

4 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, to guzzle wine.
    Rulers should not crave alcohol.
5 For if they drink, they may forget the law
    and not give justice to the oppressed.
6 Alcohol is for the dying,
    and wine for those in bitter distress.
7 Let them drink to forget their poverty
    and remember their troubles no more.

8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves;
    ensure justice for those being crushed.
9 Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless,
    and see that they get justice.

10 Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?
    She is more precious than rubies.
11 Her husband can trust her,
    and she will greatly enrich his life.
12 She brings him good, not harm,
    all the days of her life.

13 She finds wool and flax
    and busily spins it.
14 She is like a merchant’s ship,
    bringing her food from afar.
15 She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household
    and plan the day’s work for her servant girls.

16 She goes to inspect a field and buys it;
    with her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She is energetic and strong,
    a hard worker.
18 She makes sure her dealings are profitable;
    her lamp burns late into the night.

19 Her hands are busy spinning thread,
    her fingers twisting fiber.
20 She extends a helping hand to the poor
    and opens her arms to the needy.
21 She has no fear of winter for her household,
    for everyone has warm clothes.

22 She makes her own bedspreads.
    She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns.
23 Her husband is well known at the city gates,
    where he sits with the other civic leaders.
24 She makes belted linen garments
    and sashes to sell to the merchants.

25 She is clothed with strength and dignity,
    and she laughs without fear of the future.
26 When she speaks, her words are wise,
    and she gives instructions with kindness.
27 She carefully watches everything in her household
    and suffers nothing from laziness.

28 Her children stand and bless her.
    Her husband praises her:
29 “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world,
    but you surpass them all!”

30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last;
    but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised.
31 Reward her for all she has done.
    Let her deeds publicly declare her praise.

Proverbs 31

Dear God, I know of a relative getting married soon, and my perception is that his fiance fits this mode well. I like her, and I’m grateful for her in his life. I pray your blessing on them. I pray that you will help them to both grow in you through each other.

When I read this passage this morning, I had a few thoughts. First, of a mother trying to instruct her son as only a mother can. I would imagine this woman would have been a tough mother-in-law, but she did give her son some great advice. And it can be hard to send your son into the world. As the parents of two adult children, my wife and I have noted that when our children are dating someone what we look for is good fruit in them. Does the relationship seem to be producing good fruit or bad fruit. Are they growing and maturing, or are they regressing? Do they seem to be growing more selfless and loving or more selfish and defensive? Good fruit is really all we care about.

Second, I thought of the Kim Hill song “Charm is Deceitful.”

I remember this song from over 30 years ago. I think it came out about the time my wife and I got married in 1992. At the time, I thought these words described her. I still think that. She’s a remarkably good woman. How on earth did you give me enough insight to choose her as a wife and give her the mercy to choose me as a husband? We were so young. We made a decision beyond our years.

Father, I pray for my wife today. She’s had some recent sorrow. I pray that you will strongly support her, raise up voices around her who can be an encouragement to her, and help her to feel your love above everything else. Help her to transcend her earthly pain. Help the things of earth to grow strangely dim as she turns her eyes upon you. And I pray for the couple I mentioned earlier. I pray that you will bless their marriage. That you will use them in each other’s lives. That there might be joy and peace in their home.

I pray all of this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on May 12, 2026 in Proverbs

 

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Proverbs 8:1-4

10 May

Proverbs 8:1-4 [NLT]
1 Listen as Wisdom calls out!
Hear as understanding raises her voice!
2 On the hilltop along the road,
she takes her stand at the crossroads.
3 By the gates at the entrance to the town,
on the road leading in, she cries aloud,
4 “I call to you, to all of you!
I raise my voice to all people.

Dear God, I don’t think I seek out “wisdom” enough. I seek out answers. I seek out intelligence. I seek out reason. I seek out all kinds of things that I mistake for wisdom, but I don’t seek out wisdom itself.

So what is wisdom? Let me see if I can put words to it. I think wisdom is a combination of several things. It starts with hearing your still small voice telling me to think differently. It involves taking my own gain out of the picture. It looks beyond the surface of a situation and back into the underlying roots. It plays the tape all of the way to the end and considers all of the dominoes that a course of action will knock over. And then after all of the prayers have been prayed, I have died to myself and my own self-interests, and I have considered everything, I come back to that still small voice. And at the end of the day it might tell me to do the thing that is foolish in my eyes. But I do it anyway because that is where you are guiding my heart.

The problem in tapping into wisdom regularly is multi-fold. On a basic level, I cannot have it unless I am continuously plugged into you. I can’t just show up and ask for it when I think I need it. Then there is the rapid-fire nature at which things come at me throughout the day. A situation can require wisdom at the drop of a hat, and 98% of the time I solve the problem with my own intellect instead of stopping to consider you.

Father, I could go on and on, but at the end of the day I will say that I am sorry for living so foolishly so much of the time. I am sorry I miss the opportunities you put in front of me, and I make the wrong decisions when given the opportunity to serve you. Continue to soften my heart and grow me into being someone who will at least only miss you 97% of the time. Then maybe in a month I’ll be down to 96%. Who knows? By the time I get to the end of my life, I might be down into the 80’s. I love you, Father, and I am sorry for the things I have done and the things I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

 

 
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Posted by on May 10, 2019 in Proverbs

 

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Emails to God – A Young Head on Old Shoulders (Proverbs 1:8-9)

12 Oct

8 Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
9 They are a garland to grace your head
and a chain to adorn your neck.

Dear God, “You can’t put an old head on young shoulders.” Those are the words my grandmother spoke to my mother (her daughter-in-law) just before my wedding 20 years ago. They are the dismayed sentiments of every parent raising children. We want to give them the benefit of our knowledge that was learned through the experiences of failure and success. We want to give them that head start in life and help them to get further down the road just a little faster.

The context for my grandmother’s words were that she spoke in a moment of tenderness between her and my mother. I was less than a month from getting married, and my mom was talking with my grandmother about my mom’s own wedding to my dad. Both of my dad’s parents disapproved. My dad, their oldest, had just graduated from the University of Kansas and was working at his first career job in Kansas City. He had also just been drafted to go into the Army during Vietnam. My mother was a high school dropout, divorced, and a mother of two. She was not who my grandparents had in mind for their son, and they let both of my parents know about it.

In 1992, over 23 three years later, my mother (still married to my father, but it hadn’t been easy) and grandmother had made peace (but it was really only a recent peace). I was about to graduate from Baylor University and marry a woman who had one more semester to go at Baylor before she graduated. She had never been married and had no children. My grandmother, for her part, was terminally ill and would die two and a half weeks after my wedding. She and my grandfather had moved from Kansas to stay with my parents in Texas while she went through treatment. It was in this context that my mother said, “Sally, I have to tell you, if my Baylor graduate came home with a divorced high school dropout with two children, I wouldn’t be too happy about it either.” My grandmother’s response: “You can’t put an old head on young shoulders.”

I’ve always interpreted her words, which my mother told me about later, as being meant for the person in their twenties who hadn’t yet experienced life. But I wonder if they weren’t also for the person in their forties who still has a lot to learn. My grandparents wanted to save my dad from the pain they could see coming in his life by marrying into a complicated situation. In 1992, my grandmother now had 23 more years of experience that she didn’t have back in 1968. She probably wished she had known in 1968 what she knew in 1992.

Father, I guess my point is, I can try to train my children, but they are going to go the way they are going to go. It’s that weird, terrible, wonderful thing you gave all of us called free will. I don’t quite understand why you did it. It seems like it causes more problems than it solves. But I can see them learning, and, although as teenagers it appears they no longer listen to me, I can see us starting to get a little bit of traction in the lessons we have taught them. So help me to remember to allow them a young head to grow old on its own (though hopefully it will be at least somewhat formed by the lessons my wife and I teach), and help me to remember that, even at 42, I don’t yet have as old of a head as I think I do.

 
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Posted by on October 12, 2012 in Miscellaneous

 

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Emails to God – Interfacing with God in the Present (Proverbs 27:1)

04 Oct

“Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.”

Dear God, there are times when I am just like a little kid. I get some amount of good news and I want to share it with people. I want to celebrate. And, truth be told, I also want to point at myself a little and at least imply the role I played in getting the good thing done.

I watch a lot of football. Probably too much. One of the things that always amazes me is when they put the camera on a coach during a critical time of the game, and they will show his reaction to either a really good or really bad play. Now, there are some coaches who wave their arms and go nuts, but I am always surprised at how many of them take in what they just saw and simply move on to the next thing without letting their expression change. After the game, they might talk during their press conference about the emotion they felt at the time, but their expression and body language didn’t betray any of those feelings. There is a part of me that wishes I were like that, and a part of me that wonders if a little more exhibition of emotion isn’t necessary to lead.

I think that the big problem with allowing yourself to exhibit too much positive emotion as a leader is that there will be a tendency to exhibit too much negative emotion when those who are following you need a lift.

Father, the truth is that this verse is about not getting too far ahead of myself, but taking like one moment at a time. As C.S. Lewis said in the 15th letter of the Screwtape Letters (my paraphrase), the present is the only point in time that interfaces with you. While time means nothing to you, it means everything to us, and we cannot interact with you in the past or in the future. We can only interact with you in this moment. Well, this Proverb is about staying in the moment. As I go through the challenges of my day, help me to stay in whatever moment I find myself and not drift into fear or great expectation of the future. That includes my parenting, my husbanding, and my leading at work.

 
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Posted by on October 4, 2012 in Miscellaneous

 

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