Thursday, September 2, 2021
Look Up
and Rejoice
For God Is Ready
to Bless Us Each Day
With Simple Wisdom
Psalm 25:12
Who are they that fear the Lord? He will teach them the way that they should choose.
Philippians 1:9-10a
This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best.
Words of Grace For Today
Each day we make choices of how to proceed through our day.
Sometimes our choices are simple: Do I kill the ant crawling on the window? Yes. Do I kill the wasp buzzing around my head? No. Do I share food with the young camper who, for some reason, camps for months and has no way to provide for himself, except an relative who shows up occasionally (or not) with supports of various kinds? Yes. Do I mow the grass to keep the mosquitoes down? Yes.
Sometimes our choices are more complicated: Do I help the yelling young parent with a screaming child running around the grocery store? Maybe yes. That can be a situation where a moment’s intervention can break the stress for both parent and child and allow them both to proceed in a better space. But maybe no. Intervening in a family situation may be taken the wrong way and all the pent up anger can be focused on the person who intervenes, either immediately or at some later date. Do I sign a mortgage to buy property even though I know my job is not secure for the length of the mortgage? Maybe yes, since my family needs a home. Maybe no, because we may have a home for only a year or so before we lose it and then we will have even less resources for a home. Given that pressure do I take the management job offered with another company that pays much better, but has a reputation for skirting the law and abusing it’s employees? I need the money, but do I want to become one who abuses employees?
Sometimes our choices appear to be simple but they turn out to have consequences that we did not see, either good or bad. What are we to do?
Paul, writing one of his most loving and affectionate letters (to the church in Philippi) prays for them: This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best.
We would wish this for ourselves, and for other people.
This wisdom is a God given gift. It is not handed out in a day, but grows over a lifetime of living wisely, and that life begins with the fear of the Lord, As the psalmist wrote in many and various ways: Who are they that fear the Lord? He will teach them the way that they should choose.
Help us God, we pray each day, to fear and love you that we may be blessed with the wisdom which guides us to choose the best for all people in each of our choices we make.