By David ReayTuesday 5 Jan 2021LifeWords DevotionalsDevotionsReading Time: 2 minutes
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. (NLT)
My prayers sometimes are reduced to simple requests for wisdom. I can pray for deliverance from adversity, for good health, for all sorts of other legitimate things, but so often it comes down to wisdom. My prayers can’t guarantee certain outcomes so I need to be prepared to respond wisely to various life circumstances.
If our text is read in the wrong way, it may imply that we need strong faith and an utter absence of doubt if our prayers for wisdom are to be answered. But the context suggests that this is all about responding rightly to setbacks and adversity. I am to ask God for wisdom to respond to such situations.
And I am not to doubt that his way is best. I am not to ask God to give me some of his ideas of wisdom and then make up my mind whether or not to adopt them. If I am to know God’s way, I need to commit myself to following it rather than demanding some sneak preview of what his way might be.
If I am double minded or disloyal I would not recognise wisdom even if it stared me in the face. Frantically searching everywhere for wisdom means I miss out on the one true source of wisdom. It is not as if I need “mega faith”, I simply need to trust God knows what he is doing even if I don’t. And that is the beginning of wisdom.
Blessings
David