Author: ianfrancoisdt

Its raining outside and a cold wind is stirring the branches as I snuggle down to spend my favorite time of the day. As I become quiet I picture myself sitting on my Father’s lap – His arms wrapped around and holding me – holding me securely. A love which is in one way unseen but revealed and promised in His Word in so many ways, but in another way is experienced through the love of all those around me – Thank you again Lord, I worship you from the bottom of my heart.

My reading is Prov 30:1-9. Opening with some words reminiscent of Job chp’s 38-41 of God’s amazing, supernatural power, wisdom and omniscience, reminding us of how much greater He is than us. Against that background is the assurance of the absolute dependability of God’s Word. His creative power and His flawless word are so often coupled, I find. Against this background the writer calls for God’s help with two things.

1. To keep him honest. To help him not to speak lies or bend the truth in any way.
2. To provide for him, just enough. Too much will lead to him forgetting God and too little may lead him to steal. A further reading is Psalm 119:25-32. Vs 30 tells me that honesty is a choice, just as we have seen with trust and wisdom. But wait a bit, we said that the choice to trust and the choice of wisdom has a supernatural element to it. In other words although we are called to choose these, we are absolutely dependent on our relationship with Jesus through His Spirit to make this choice. So here we are confronted with that same truth concerning integrity and honesty. Now I stop to consider. Honesty and integrity are such a given in the Christian life. Do I ever even give it much thought, except where others have been dishonest to me? I realize with a stark shock that – yes, my heart, not theirs mine, is deceitful above all things. I need to examine the very motives behind my speech and actions and bring them constantly to the foot of the cross so that I can reflect the real truth which is only pure in Christ Himself. So can I challenge every one of you reading this blog today to do the same? It is so easy to measure ourselves against the background of all the dishonesty that we are experiencing around us, it is so easy to feel a smug self satisfaction. Yes? T.he challenge is not to measure ourselves against anyone else but Jesus Himself.

In the quiet of the early winter’s morning the rain sifts down gently onto my patio. The word comes to me “You will only be truly free when you really believe in the extent of my love for you and know and allow yourself to experience that love” (Ephes 3:18,19). In my mind’s eye I see a great cloud beneath me and I am being invited to let go and launch myself into that cloud which represents God’s love, where I can see no end to it. Scary but hugely inviting.

My reading is from Prov 8:1-11. . Wisdom is calling out to me, inviting me to receive it. The call is (vs 5) “gain wisdom, gain understanding”. It is an instruction, but how does one obey that simple instruction, especially seeing that true wisdom only exists in a relationship with the source of all wisdom – Jesus?

Well friends here it is again vs 6 “Listen……..I have worthy things to say, I open my mouth to speak …. Then comes the thing that really surprised me vs 10 choose ……..Choose my instruction, ……knowledge, wisdom, rather than the most valuable of jewels.

So yes friends, just like trust involves a choice we make and obedience is a choice we make, So Wisdom is also a choice we make. But here is the rub, we don’t gain wisdom in a vacuum. We gain wisdom within the relationship we have with Jesus. He invites us first, He instructs us first, He empowers us first, yet in a miraculous, supernatural sort of way we still have to make that choice. It starts with that relationship and the important part, which is the backbone of my blog, starts with true listening. That in turn, as we have seen before, starts with humility, being prepared to hear, recognizing our need to hear, asking for the grace to be teachable.

Have you ever felt, when you start reading a passage in the bible, “oh I know this so well” and your mind takes off at a tangent and soon you are thinking of something completely different?

Seems to me that we have to continuously make the choice to listen and obey, because change is so hard and takes so long to come about. That, of course is why God sometimes shakes the very foundations of our faith by some crisis or other, to soften our hearts and help us to be more teachable.

According to Selwyn Hughes, the second pillar of wisdom is integrity. Remember the first one was trust. We will now see how closely integrity is associated with trust. But suffice to say today that, like trust, integrity is a choice you make. And, yes I was patting myself on the back about this till I allowed The Spirit into my heart and He turned up a few thoughts and actions, which pulled me up short and made me rethink.

So friends, practice listening. Decide before you start your reading to listen and obey. Ask God to speak into your heart. Reflect and meditate on what He has said to you and stay close to Him as you go into the day, because wisdom is more precious than silver, gold or precious rubies.

May He bless you as you “hear” Him speak.

The silence in my house settles like a blanket, as I clear my mind to hear the Lord. “Keep…..” I hear, But Keep what? Then it all comes out: “Keep running the race with perseverance, marked out for you, Fix your eyes on Jesus the author and finisher of our faith…….” and I turn to Hebrews 12:1-13. “Yes Lord I needed that”. A picture of running the Comrades marathon comes into my mind’s eye. (I’ve never done that). The discipline and constant reaffirmation of the value of the prize to finish. I find it tempting to feel sorry for myself as I face every day with the goal so far in the future. Maybe I’m only at “Polyshorts”. Prov 4:26,27 seems to affirm that: “Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or to the left.

But what about the idea of trust and wisdom? After our prayer meeting yesterday Ludwig sent a link to a talk by Tim Keller on Jeremiah 17. If you look back you will see I was speaking about that chapter last blog. His message was an eye-opener, however. I can’t give the whole message but he focused on vv 6-8, where God compares the one who trusts in man and turns away from the Lord to a bush in the desert. He described such a bush, struggling and ugly with few leaves, no nourishment for its roots and even when a storm pours water on it, can scarcely benefit. To the one who trusts in the Lord who is like a tree planted by a river, where its roots reach out into the stream. It faces the fear of heat and the worries in the year of drought, but never fails to bear fruit.

But here is the interesting thing.Vs 7 says (better translated in the ESV) Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. So the difference is the one trusts in the Lord and the other’s trust is the Lord. Splitting hairs? Not at all.The one who trusts in the Lord is trusting the Lord for the result or rewards he will get from placing that trust. So there is an expectation that if you trust in the Lord He will answer this prayer, or will provide that solution etc. The problem with that is that if your expectation is not met then your whole ability to “trust” gets a major knock and you will have less and less confidence in trusting Him next time.

The one whose trust IS the Lord however has placed his love and trust completely upon the Lord. He has placed the Lord central in His life. He is like the one whose roots reach down into the water and there is no fear or worry when the heat or the storms come because He knows the Lord is in ultimate control. Thought provoking!

Wycliffe the famous bible translator is reputed to have said you can measure who/what anyone is trusting and loving the most, by asking what do you spend most of your time thinking about in your unguarded moments? Last time I suggested that the measure is who do you run to in the moment of crisis?

My friends I share these thoughts with you because I find myself on a roller coaster sometimes – moments of supreme trust and confidence and then something unexpected and challenging happens and suddenly doubts flood in. Tim Keller reminded of Ephesians 3:14-21 and the importance of vs 17 where Paul prays that the reader may be rooted in God’s love.

So where are you rooted? I will keep praying for all of us that we will be rooted in that love which is immeasurable and promised completely to each one of us in Christ.

So we have said trust is one of the 7 pillars of wisdom. So let’s open that up a bit more.

Prov 16:16-20. We said that trust was a choice. Now look at vs 16. Choose understanding (wisdom). OK but just choosing it isn’t going to make it happen. It is the start of an attitude which seeks wisdom. Well what have we said from the beginning, how do we connect with the source of wisdom, Jesus Christ? We need to listen to Him. We need to choose to listen to Him.

But the next few vv remind us of something extremely important, which affects our ability to listen effectively:

What prevents us from hearing Jesus in our hearts? v 18.

What is the right attitude which will enable us to hear vv 19-20?

What do you understand by the concept of “blessing” as expressed in v 20?

In Israel the greeting is Shalom. This describes a wish for one to be in complete harmony with God and His creation. Of course in the NT, it is called blessing and can only be found in a right relationship with Jesus. But here we find the way to that blessing. cf vs 20.

Now the question is who (what) am I really trusting in? cf vs 20 now read Psalm 20:7; Isaiah 31:1-3; Jeremiah 17:5-9.

Ask yourself, when the chips are down, who are you really trusting?

And see the warning in Jeremiah 9. Yes? How easy it is to fool ourselves that we are really trusting in the Lord (and His wisdom). Notice too that the one who trusts in man or anything else other than God is called “cursed”. That is the opposite of blessed.

Wow made me think, this one!

In Prov 9:1 we read that Wisdom’s house has seven pillars. Selwyn Hughes suggests that this describes 7 different aspects of Wisdom. I have decided to investigate it from this angle and look today at the first and most basic pillar of Wisdom which is trust.

In my time with Jesus during the last months I have been continually confronted with this most important concept. I mentioned in a previous blog that I had remembered a decision I made while still searching to “step out of the boat” as it were. This came from the title of a book “If you want to walk on the water you must first step out of the boat”.

So the question I am asking myself now is; how much am I actually trusting the Lord? Ludwig mentioned on Saturday that trust is a decision we make. At the simplest level it is that. However trust can only happen if the object of your trust has been sufficiently revealed to you so that you know Who you are trusting in and can confidently do it, based on this knowledge. So there is a very real spiritual aspect to trust. In addition to this we grow in trust as we experience the result of our trust. Here again I have experienced that God puts us into situations where we are called to trust Him. As we grow in faith, so those situations often become more and more demanding. Ultimately we find that the real gospel life is only possible if we live supernaturally trusting in Jesus.

Reading Prov 3:1-18.

Why don’t you read that passage for yourself, with the central focus on vs 5. Asking yourself how is this vs so basic to our Christian walk?

And then how do we reach this level of trust?

What role does God’s Word play in this? vs 1

What has love and faithfulness to do with it vs 3, and sharing your wealth vs 9?

It seems to me in this passage, basic to getting wisdom to trust the Lord lies two facets. God’s word and true humility vs 1 and 7.

Then in vs 12 the writer suggests that God uses His discipline to enable us to truly trust Him. This is a hard one but underlying that vs is the reassurance that God only disciplines those He loves. (maybe we should see by this vs how important our trust is to God).

Finally in vv 19,20 we see the reminder of who the One is that we are trusting in. I find that meditating on vv like those helps me enormously to build my trust.

Now if you want to, read Psalm 37:1-11

How does this enrich our reading today?

As you read these passages my prayer for all of us is in Ephes 1:17, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus, the glorious Father may give you the spirit of wisdom and understanding that you may know Him better”. That his will not be just an intellectual exercise, but that it will be heart-changing as you listen and hear Him speak.