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Wisdom 3:1-9

02 Nov

1     But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
    and no torment can overtake them.
2 From the viewpoint of the foolish, they seemed to be dead,
    and their passing away was reckoned as a misfortune,
3     and their departure from us as their ruin.
But they are at peace.
4 Although in the eyes of others they were chastised,
    their hope is full of immortality.
5 Having endured a slight chastisement, they will receive great blessings,
    because God tested them
    and found them worthy to be with him.
6 He put them to the proof like gold in a furnace,
    and he accepted them as a sacrificial burnt offering.
7 In the time of their visitation they will shine brightly
    and spread like sparks among the stubble.
8 They will judge nations and have dominion over peoples,
    and the Lord will be their King forever.
9 Those who trust in him will understand truth,
    and the faithful will dwell with him in love,
because grace and mercy are reserved for his holy ones,
    and he shows concern for his elect.

Wisdom 3:1-9

Dear God, on this All Souls Day, I am left thinking that I don’t think about my dead ancestors enough. I think about some of them. The ones I knew. The ones I liked. But I don’t think about the ones I didn’t know, or the ones I might have known but with whom I had not relationship.

I just got some mementos from my mother’s house that are from my paternal grandmother. I knew her and liked her. I knew my paternal grandfather too. And I think about them. But I never their parents. And although I met my maternal grandmother, I only ever saw her a handful of times and I didn’t really know her. And I never met my maternal grandfather. He was long gone by the time I was born. Interestingly, however, almost everyone from my parents’ generation of the family are still living. I’ve only lost one uncle who I saw less than my maternal grandmother. That is to say, I didn’t really know him at all. But I haven’t experienced as much loss. Certainly, I haven’t experienced the type of loss my wife has, who has lost both parents, and has only one blood immediate family member at her parents’ generation level. This day means more to her than it does to me, mainly because I just don’t relate to it in the same way.

Father, I want to be more sensitive to my wife’s loss and pain even though I can’t empathize. I do, however, at least want to effectively sympathize. I also want to think more about the legacies, both good and bad, my ancestors left me that are rippling through history. And how my legacy will ripple through history in my descendants. I pray that you will make your plan me-proof. I don’t want to be able to get in the way of whatever you are doing in the world, but I want the dominoes my life knocks over to be part of bringing your kingdom and will into the earth. As I sit here right now, I am filled with love for all of the ancestors I did and didn’t know. They are part of me and I carry them with me. May it all happen for your glory.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on November 2, 2025 in Wisdom

 

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Ecclesiastes 10

19 Oct

10 As dead flies cause even a bottle of perfume to stink,
    so a little foolishness spoils great wisdom and honor.

2 A wise person chooses the right road;
    a fool takes the wrong one.

3 You can identify fools
    just by the way they walk down the street!

4 If your boss is angry at you, don’t quit!
    A quiet spirit can overcome even great mistakes.

5 There is another evil I have seen under the sun. Kings and rulers make a grave mistake 6 when they give great authority to foolish people and low positions to people of proven worth. 7 I have even seen servants riding horseback like princes—and princes walking like servants!

8 When you dig a well,
    you might fall in.
When you demolish an old wall,
    you could be bitten by a snake.
9 When you work in a quarry,
    stones might fall and crush you.
When you chop wood,
    there is danger with each stroke of your ax.

10 Using a dull ax requires great strength,
    so sharpen the blade.
That’s the value of wisdom;
    it helps you succeed.

11 If a snake bites before you charm it,
    what’s the use of being a snake charmer?

12 Wise words bring approval,
    but fools are destroyed by their own words.

13 Fools base their thoughts on foolish assumptions,
    so their conclusions will be wicked madness;
14     they chatter on and on.

No one really knows what is going to happen;
    no one can predict the future.

15 Fools are so exhausted by a little work
    that they can’t even find their way home.

16 What sorrow for the land ruled by a servant,
    the land whose leaders feast in the morning.
17 Happy is the land whose king is a noble leader
    and whose leaders feast at the proper time
    to gain strength for their work, not to get drunk.

18 Laziness leads to a sagging roof;
    idleness leads to a leaky house.

19 A party gives laughter,
    wine gives happiness,
    and money gives everything!

20 Never make light of the king, even in your thoughts.
    And don’t make fun of the powerful, even in your own bedroom.
For a little bird might deliver your message
    and tell them what you said.

Ecclesiastes 10

Dear God, I have to say that it was verses 13 and 14a that stuck out to me this morning:

13 Fools base their thoughts on foolish assumptions,
    so their conclusions will be wicked madness;
14     they chatter on and on.

I thought of Solomon and the premise for many of his arguments in the previous 9 chapters: It’s all a waste so you might as well make yourself as happy as you can. Oh, how I think Jesus would have had something to say to Solomon about all of this.

So that makes me wonder why kinds of things I am just so certain of that are simple foolishness. Don’t get me wrong, I love to sit here and judge Solomon from thousands of years ago. But what is the good in that? I need to learn from Solomon, and I need some self introspection to figure out if there are any premises of my philosophy/theology/perspective that are simply wrong? When it comes to my marriage, is there anything I believe that is simply wrong? When it comes to parenting? My work? My involvement in church and the community? My engagement in politics? I have a friend who is a good man and a great lover and worshipper of you, but I fear he has made politics, politicians, and other associated things into an idol. I tried to talk to him about it, but he couldn’t hear my arguments. I am sure that if he were the one sitting here right now, he might be typing the same thing about me. How can John not feel more this way or that way? Why is he not upset about this or prioritizing that?

Father, I don’t know that I’m going to come up with some great answer sitting here this morning, but I am sure there are many areas where I am flat out wrong. When I meet you face to face one day I will have all kinds of things revealed to me that will make me feel foolish. So I am sorry for my foolishness. I am sorry that I likely cause you to shake your head at my missed opportunities or wrong perspectives. I love you. Holy Spirit, please speak to me in a still, small voice and reveal not only the Father and the Son to me, but also open my eyes to see the sin in myself.

I pray this in Jesus and with the Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on October 19, 2024 in Ecclesiastes

 

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Ecclesiastes 2

11 Oct

2 I said to myself, “Come on, let’s try pleasure. Let’s look for the ‘good things’ in life.” But I found that this, too, was meaningless. 2 So I said, “Laughter is silly. What good does it do to seek pleasure?” 3 After much thought, I decided to cheer myself with wine. And while still seeking wisdom, I clutched at foolishness. In this way, I tried to experience the only happiness most people find during their brief life in this world.

4 I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and by planting beautiful vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. 7 I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also owned large herds and flocks, more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. 8 I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire!

9 So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me. 10 Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. 11 But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.

12 So I decided to compare wisdom with foolishness and madness (for who can do this better than I, the king?). 13 I thought, “Wisdom is better than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness. 14 For the wise can see where they are going, but fools walk in the dark.” Yet I saw that the wise and the foolish share the same fate. 15 Both will die. So I said to myself, “Since I will end up the same as the fool, what’s the value of all my wisdom? This is all so meaningless!” 16 For the wise and the foolish both die. The wise will not be remembered any longer than the fool. In the days to come, both will be forgotten.

17 So I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless—like chasing the wind.

18 I came to hate all my hard work here on earth, for I must leave to others everything I have earned. 19 And who can tell whether my successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I have gained by my skill and hard work under the sun. How meaningless! 20 So I gave up in despair, questioning the value of all my hard work in this world.

21 Some people work wisely with knowledge and skill, then must leave the fruit of their efforts to someone who hasn’t worked for it. This, too, is meaningless, a great tragedy. 22 So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety? 23 Their days of labor are filled with pain and grief; even at night their minds cannot rest. It is all meaningless.

24 So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. 25 For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?26 God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please him. But if a sinner becomes wealthy, God takes the wealth away and gives it to those who please him. This, too, is meaningless—like chasing the wind.

Ecclesiastes 2

Dear God, as I read this chapter this morning I thought of a friend of my dad’s. I might have his philosophy incorrect, so I don’t want to use his name. Or my dad might have misinterpreted his philosophy to me. Either way, when I read this this morning, I thought of my perception of his philosophy which is, “Make your money and accumulate your wealth in the first half of your life and then use the second half of your life doing something or multiple things that are significant for God.” He even wrote a best selling book that showed people how to use the second half of their lives effectively. I think it was mainly designed for men and women who already found themselves in a midlife crisis, and it wasn’t written for the 20-year-old who was setting out on their career.

My dad and I were talking about this book recently, and he recounted this philosophy to me again. I told him that I disagreed with it. And now, reading this passage in Ecclesiastes, I kind of know why. Even this search for significance in the second half of life is chasing the wind. It is grasping for the things Solomon is grasping for in this passage. The money and wealth sought in the first half of life are just replaced with significance and joy.

There are two great commands Jesus gave us: love you and love others. Then he gave us this amazing sermon in Matthew 5-7 that basically outlines the standard we should strive for as we live out our salvation. Part of that living out of our salvation is to reframe my life. My life is not about my significance! The sooner I come to peace with that and accept it, ironically, the happier I will be.

My wife and I were talking yesterday about how, other than the constant sorrow that is in our lives through broken relationships, we are in a very good place. We have no complaints. Basically, life is good right now. Even as she was saying the words, I wanted to look over my shoulder for another shoe that could drop. Maybe one of us will have a health issue. Maybe I’ll have an unforeseen problem at work. We could have a health issue with another family member. Really, the possibilities are endless. And I don’t want those things. I like it easy. But I hope that should calamity or headwinds come, I won’t complain to you.

Father, I’ve been disappointed with you before. But you used that disappointment to teach me these lessons. And I know I still have more to learn, and sometimes the only way I can learn them is through struggling. So I am absolutely not inviting those struggles, but I pray that when you have something for me to learn, you will give me a teachable heart that will take the lesson and worship you for the rest of my days.

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

Amen

 
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Posted by on October 11, 2024 in Ecclesiastes

 

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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 – Avoiding Foolishness (Matthew 22:15-22)

08 Apr

15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”

18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Dear God, I would love it if Jesus had stopped speaking at the end of verse 18 and waited for their answer: “Why are you trying to trap me?” I wonder if they even knew. Did they know why they were doing it? Were they really, legitimately concerned about Jesus being a heretic, or were they just following the mob mentality that the chief priests and Pharisees were pushing?

I am convinced that a lot of the mistakes I make in my life are the result of me not really understanding my motivations. I will hurt someone else because I was hurt. I will make a decision out of fear rather than thinking it and praying it through. Selfishness and self-preservation kicks in and I lose perspective on what I am doing.

Father, I have all kinds of things that happen to me every day that give me an opportunity to display your grace and wisdom or my selfishness and foolishness. As I go into this next week, help me to not fall into the trap that the disciples of the Pharisees did in this story. If they had stopped and prayed to you for guidance they might have avoided being so foolish. So help me to remember to stop and pray for your guidance, and use your wisdom to guide my actions and my life.

 
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Posted by on April 8, 2012 in Matthew

 

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