Wisdom in 2009

As we roll into a new year, God renews faith. For many, He places a fresh emphasis on their heart. A kind of preview of what He intends to reveal during the coming year. For me, He has led me to Proverbs. I must admit that I come into this book kicking and screaming. Here's why...

Many of the conversations and sermons I personally have been a part of, or have heard, based on Solomon's book, sound like excerpts from advice columns, not the Holy Scriptures. I think this is because for many, wisdom and common sense are virtually the same. When we read the Bible, we recognize they are not! The scriptures (Proverbs included) teach that God's revelation results in wisdom and man's intellect many times contradicts what God reveals. This in no way is a put down to God. Quite the contrary, it reminds us that we are not as smart as we think we are. I say all this to simply say, I am embarking on a journey to encounter God in the Proverbs in 2009. He has already met me there in these first few days and chapters. I am confident He has much to reveal of Himself and much to change in me this year.

Seeking the God of All Wisdom in 2009,
~Jon

"'On earth as it is in heaven' is Jesus' prayer. 'Wisdom' is the biblical term for this on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven everyday living....

Wisdom has to do with becoming skillful in honoring our parents and raising our children, handling our money and conducting our sexual lives, going to work and exercising leadership, using words well and treating friends kindly, eating and drinking healthily, cultivating emotions within ourselves and attitudes toward others that make for peace. Threaded through all these items is the insistence that the way we think of and respond to God is the most practical thing we do. In matters of everyday practicality, nothing, absolutely nothing, takes precedent over God." - Eugene Peterson from his introduction to Proverbs in The Message