Praying God's Wisdom: Living Daily with Wisdom

 

 Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, Ephesians 5:15

 Interestingly, we explored this verse last Spring while doing the study, For Such a Time as This. What I wrote about then holds true today, but I feel like it has just a little more depth, a little more insight. I love how God’s Word is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). We can look at the same verse over and over, and each time we learn something new, but perhaps this is partly because we are not the same person that looked at it before. Since then, we’ve grown, changed, learned new things. The verses are the same, but we are not.

 When you zoom out and look at the whole passage in Ephesians, we see that, according to verse 17, living as wise involves understanding the Lord’s will. A few weeks back we talked about how to discern God’s will and growing in our ability to hear and trust His guidance. God brought Isaiah 30:21 to my attention that day and it changed, enhanced how I understand and experience hearing God’s direction in my life. In it, Isaiah writes, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” This is the way. The images that I created, with the help of my AI friends, that day stuck in my mind, and ever since then, when I have faced a choice I was uncertain about, I sought God’s guidance. True to His Word, each time I felt a clear direction from Him. And, as I wrote about then, each time I felt a reminder about how that direction was in line with what I knew from the Bible.

 Just yesterday I was praying and asking God’s blessing on our Anniversary celebration (yesterday was our 28^th wedding anniversary) and God brought to my mind that I needed to confess something to my husband and ask for forgiveness. I didn’t want to. I hadn’t been planning to tell him about that particular choice I’d made at all. But I saw God’s wisdom in it and the truth from His Word that confession and honesty in relationships is so important. We were about to do something fun and I was afraid that if I told him right then it would spoil the experience, so I prayed about whether I should tell him before or after our event, and God pointed out to me that I would not be able to stop thinking about it and that it would spoil things for both of us if I didn’t share right away. So, with one more prayer for direction and the right wording, I confessed to my husband and asked his forgiveness. I’m so thankful to report that he did, indeed, forgive me and the timing was important because the issue was removed from my mind and we were able to enjoy our time together thoroughly without the specter of that mistake hanging over my head. This situation could have turned out so differently if God hadn’t intervened as He did and I’m so grateful for our relationship and that He speaks to my heart and has taught me to hear Him well.

 Living as wise involves living in God’s will, seeking Him regularly, learning from Him often. The last part of Colossians 1:9 reads, “the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives.” We need both knowledge and wisdom. They go together. You have to know God’s Word in order to have the wisdom it brings. Knowledge brings truth and wisdom leads to application. Colossians 1:9 teaches us that we need to both know God’s will and then receive from the Holy Spirit the wisdom and understanding to live and act in it. Like yesterday, I needed to know that I had to confess my poor choice to my husband and I needed the wisdom and understanding from the Holy Spirit on how to do that in such a way that it wouldn’t ruin our anniversary.

Here’s the Thing: On this side of heaven, I think only Jesus did this all perfectly, but while I’m here I want to keep growing in this most important aspect of life. Each day I want to be a little better at listening to God and correctly handling His truth and guidance.