Praying God's Wisdom: Turning on the Lights of Our Heart and Mind

 

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. Psalm 119:105

 There’s a lot of wisdom in God’s Word, I mean A LOT OF WISDOM. To start with, you have the books of wisdom in the Old Testament: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. Then you have the wisdom from Jesus’ teachings and the parables He shared followed by Paul’s exposition on God’s love, grace and how to live our lives in this world. But really, none of it can be taken by itself, none of it was intended to communicate a single truth.

 In the books of wisdom, you will find whole poems and insightful tidbits that lead to deeper understanding. I’ve heard it recommended to read a chapter of Proverbs every day of the month (there are 31 chapters), and this practice would certainly bathe you in an aspect of God’s wisdom, but, as I’ll discuss later, it is only one aspect. I think people can get caught up in the deep, profound sayings they read here. God is wise, that is very true, but God is not just wise. He is also loving, kind and just, and a whole host of other traits. You can’t focus on God’s wisdom shared in His Word to the exclusion of all else and say that you are getting to know God. That would be like eating a meal I make and saying you know me because you’ve experienced that aspect of my personality.

 The New Testament expands on this wisdom with the teachings of Jesus, and there are so many, as well as the directions Paul shares on how to live out our faith. Jesus often taught in parables which didn’t wrap up truth in a concise saying but instead taught a broader, deeper truth that could be understood by people in any station in society. He told a story that helped us to understand the point He was getting at. Sometimes though, like in Matthew chapter 13, people came away with less understanding instead of more. When the disciples asked Jesus about this, He told them that He taught in parables so that the prophecy in Isaiah about people being, “ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.” (Isaiah 6:9) would be fulfilled, Then He went on to explain the parable of the sower and the seeds so that the disciples would find that, “blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.” (Matthew 13:16). We, too, are blessed through this explanation as the Holy Spirit illuminates God’s Word for us so that our eyes can see and our ears can hear. In the New Testament it doesn’t shy away from or discourage the pursuit of wisdom though. In fact, in James 1:5 we read, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” God wants us to seek wisdom, but not in a vacuum.

 And that’s what it comes down to, friends. God is not a magic 8 ball. Your relationship can’t be typified by shaking Him up and expecting the right answer to float to the top (read flopping your Bible open at a random spot and expecting God to speak the answer to your problems there). Does that happen sometimes? Sure! God can use anything to speak to us, and most especially His Word, but if that’s the defining characteristic of your relationship with God, you’re missing out. Likewise, if your time in God’s Word comes from scrolling on socials and encountering the occasional verse meme or devotional reel, you’re getting the Costco sample version of a relationship with Jesus. To truly experience God’s wisdom and have it be integrated in your life, you must be bathing in His Word on a regular basis. You wouldn’t splash a little water on your face and walk away thinking you were clean (well, no one around you would anyways!), and likewise, just as we take a shower or bath to fully cleanse our body, we need to spend time reading and prayerfully reflecting on God’s Word to have it work in our hearts and minds to cleanse us. That’s going to look differently for everyone. I’m not saying you have to do it like me, but doing it is the important thing. When we are regularly in God’s Word, the Old Testament and the New, His true wisdom comes together. We can read what Solomon wrote in the light of what Jesus taught us about it. We can better understand Paul’s teaching with the history that led the Jewish people to where they were at that time. We’re not taking one verse by itself and making a doctrine out of it. We’re looking at the Bible as a whole teaching, all 66 books, all 31,102 verses, informing each other and blending together into an exposition on God’s love for us, and all His creation. While there are certainly challenges that you will encounter in understanding, there are no contradictions, across 40 authors and nearly 1,500 years. Only God could do that, and only He could create a word that is, “alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

 Regularly, intentionally, spending time in God’s Word changes our hearts and minds. It colors our worldview and how we experience everything around us. We hear things differently. We see things differently. Have you ever seen those videos of color blind people putting on special glasses and seeing color for the first time? It’s not dissimilar. God’s Word changes how we see and hear, giving us biblical glasses or hearing aids. It even helps us to understand and interpret itself. I can understand the Psalms so much better after reading the Gospels. People I love have struggled with their relationship with God because of what they read in the Old Testament, but when you read the Old Testament with the light and understanding of the New Testament, You can see and understand our unchanging God more clearly. There is not a different “God of the Old Testament” and “God of the New Testament.” They are One and the Same, but when you just look at one scripture without seeing it through the lens of full, biblical understanding you can get confused.

Here's the Thing: We don’t spend most of the time stumbling around in the dark and only occasionally turn on the light. No, most of the time we keep the lights on so that we can see where we’re going and what we should do. Likewise, we should be in God’s Word most of our days, not just sometimes. So tomorrow, instead of waking up and picking up your phone to scroll, try picking up your Bible and turning on the lights in your heart and mind!