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10/04/2026

Today’s Proverb: Proverbs 4:10–13

“Hear, my son, and accept my sayings
And the years of your life will be many.
I have directed you in the way of wisdom;
I have led you in upright paths.
When you walk, your steps will not be impeded;
And if you run, you will not stumble.
Take hold of instruction; do not let go.
Guard her, for she is your life.”

There is something I am beginning to appreciate about Proverbs that I think I missed for years. I don't have to make this father know everything that Jesus would eventually reveal in order for what he says to be true and valuable. I can simply listen to a wise father teaching his son what he understands about life. Listen to wisdom, walk in the right path, hold tightly to instruction, and generally you will live a longer and better life. Avoid foolishness and you avoid many of the things that destroy people. In that very practical sense, wisdom really is life.

That earthly horizon is right there in the first verse: “And the years of your life will be many.” This father is talking about living well and living long. He isn't secretly talking about eternal life every time he uses the word “life,” and I don't need to turn “years of your life” into something spiritual to make the passage Christian enough. He is teaching his son something true about how life generally works, and his son would have understood exactly what he meant.

But then Jesus comes, and suddenly I can see something the father couldn't yet see as clearly. Jesus perfectly walked the path of wisdom, perfectly trusted His Father, perfectly loved people, and perfectly obeyed—and His years were not many. He died young. His path wasn't free from obstacles. He was rejected, falsely accused, beaten, and crucified. If I turn this proverb into a guarantee that wise and obedient people will live long, comfortable, protected lives, Jesus Himself becomes the great contradiction.

But Jesus doesn't prove the father wrong. Jesus shows me that there is something much bigger than the father could yet see. Long life is good, but long life isn't Life. Health is good, but health isn't Life. Security is good, but security isn't Life. Even wisdom, as precious as it is, isn't ultimately Life. God is.

That changes the way I hear the words “I have directed you in the way of wisdom.” A wise father could give his son principles for walking a good road, but Jesus does something much more personal. He walks up to people and says, “Follow Me.” He doesn't merely give them better directions. He gives them Himself. They don't receive a map and then go off to successfully navigate life on their own. They walk behind Someone they are learning to know, love, and trust.

I think that distinction matters because I can easily approach wisdom as though its purpose is eventually to make me independent. If I study enough Scripture, collect enough principles, learn enough from my mistakes, receive enough counsel, and become wise enough, maybe eventually I will know how to make the right decisions. But the more I walk with my Father, the more I am realizing that He isn't teaching me so that someday I won't need Him. His wisdom is teaching me how deeply I do need Him.

That connects everything I have been seeing in these first few chapters. Proverbs 1 reminded me to remain teachable. Proverbs 2 showed me a Father who has treasures of wisdom stored up for me and invites me to search for them with all my heart. Proverbs 3 reminded me that some of those treasures will correct me and that I can receive His correction because I trust His love. Now Proverbs 4 tells me what to do with what He shows me: walk in it.

That is where my “Okay” becomes more than a word. If my Father shows me something and I agree that it is true but never actually walk in it, I haven't really trusted Him. If He shows me to forgive, wisdom becomes Life when I forgive. If He shows me to give, I give. If He shows me to wait, I wait. If He shows me that I need to ask someone for forgiveness, I go to that person. If He exposes something inside me that needs to change, I don't merely admire His insight. I take the next step He puts in front of me.

And maybe that is all I actually need from Him today. I often want to know where the road ends before I begin walking it. I want to know what will happen six months from now, what another person will do, whether something will succeed, what the consequences will be, and how everything will eventually fit together. But Jesus never promised His followers that kind of map. He simply said, “Follow Me.”

A map would eventually allow me to operate independently. Following requires relationship. I have to stay close enough to hear Him, trust Him enough to take the next step, and love Him enough that being with Him becomes more important than knowing exactly where the road leads. The wisdom He gives me today doesn't have to answer every question about tomorrow. It only needs to show me how to walk with Him today.

Some Christians have connected the personification of wisdom in Proverbs with Jesus, and there are certainly beautiful New Testament reasons for associating Jesus with the wisdom of God. But I don't need to make this father consciously talk about Jesus every time he talks about wisdom. I can let him say exactly what he is saying and then allow Jesus to take me farther. The father says, “Guard wisdom, for she is your life.” Jesus eventually says something even greater: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

There it is. Wisdom can show me the way, but Jesus is the Way. Wisdom can teach me what is true, but Jesus is the Truth. Wisdom can help me live well, but Jesus is the Life. And perhaps the greatest wisdom my Father can ever give me is teaching me to stop looking for Life anywhere other than Him.

So I still want every treasure of wisdom my Father has stored up for me. I want to search for it, receive it, allow it to correct me, and walk in whatever He shows me. But I am beginning to understand that wisdom was never the final treasure. Knowing enough was never the destination. Making all the right decisions was never the good Life. The treasure is my Father Himself, and wisdom is teaching me how to walk with Him.

As I meet with my Heavenly Father today, I pray, “Father, thank You for every treasure of wisdom You have stored up for me, but don't ever let me confuse Your wisdom with You. I don't want to learn enough that I no longer need to follow You. I want everything You teach me to make me know You more, love You more, trust You more, and walk more closely with You. Don't let me demand a map of tomorrow when You are offering to walk with me today. Show me the next step, and give me the strength and courage to take it even when I can't see where the road leads. You are my Life, and being with You is the good Life I have been looking for. Give me something to do today, Father, and whatever You ask of me, my answer is already, ‘Okay.’”

10/03/2026

Today’s Proverb: Proverbs 3:11–12

“My son, do not reject the discipline of the LORD
Or loathe His reproof,
For whom the LORD loves He reproves,
Even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.”

Yesterday I was thinking about the wisdom my Father has stored up for me. He knows what I need to know, what I am ready to see, and what He may still be preparing me to understand. I search because I value the treasure, and I want to come to Him already willing to say “Okay” to whatever He shows me. But this morning Proverbs made me realize that there is something else I need to include in that prayer. What if the treasure He has stored up for me is something I don't particularly enjoy receiving? What if what my Father wants to show me today is that I am wrong?

That makes the words “my answer is already ‘Okay’” much more significant. It is easy to say Okay when my Father shows me something beautiful about Himself, gives me an understanding I have been searching for, or confirms something I already suspected was true. Trust becomes much more visible when He shows me something about myself that I would rather not see. Maybe I misunderstood something. Maybe something I said was unloving. Maybe I hurt someone. Maybe what I have been calling discernment has some pride mixed into it, what I have been calling wisdom contains some fear, or what I have been calling concern contains a desire to control an outcome.

The word that changes everything for me in this proverb is “loves.” “For whom the LORD loves He reproves.” And then the father makes it even more personal: “the son in whom he delights.” The person being corrected isn't merely tolerated. He is delighted in. The correction doesn't begin with disappointment and end with acceptance if the son responds properly. Love is already there. Delight is already there. The correction happens inside that relationship.

But I also want to be careful about what I call my Father's discipline. For a long time Christians have sometimes looked at something painful and immediately tried to figure out what God was teaching through it. Something goes wrong, someone gets sick, a relationship falls apart, a business fails, or some other painful circumstance enters our lives, and we can quickly say, “God must be disciplining me.” But when I look at Jesus, I don't see Him teaching people to interpret suffering that way. He doesn't encounter someone who is sick, oppressed, grieving, or broken and tell them that His Father did this to teach them something. He moves toward them with compassion, healing, freedom, truth, and love.

So I don't have to believe that my Father caused my pain in order to believe that my Father will meet me in it. Pain can come from living in a broken world, from the choices of other people, from my own foolish choices, or from an enemy who wants to destroy. My Father doesn't have to create the furnace in order to meet me there. But once I am in it, He loves me far too much to waste what can be seen there.

Pressure has a remarkable way of revealing what comfort can keep hidden. Fear may surface. Pride may become visible. Resentment, insecurity, selfishness, dependence on another person, dependence on money, or my need to control an outcome may suddenly become easier to see. That doesn't mean my Father caused the painful circumstance in order to expose those things. It means that when something has been exposed, my loving Father is standing right there saying, “Now that you can see this, let Me show you what I see.”

That feels very different from punishment. My Father isn't standing over me saying, “I hurt you because you needed to learn.” He is beside me saying, “I love you, and since this has happened, let Me walk through it with you. Let Me show you what is happening inside you. Let Me show you where fear is speaking, where pride is hiding, where something other than Me has become your security, and where My Life can begin flowing differently through you.”

And because I trust His love, I don't have to become defensive when He corrects me. He already knows the thought I haven't admitted, the motive mixed into something good, the fear hiding beneath my reasoning, and the selfishness I haven't recognized yet. None of it surprises Him. He doesn't discover something ugly inside me and suddenly reconsider whether I am worth loving. He knew everything before He began the conversation, and He still calls me His son in whom He delights.

That means correction can actually become another treasure. “Father, show me. What am I not seeing? What is happening inside me? Where am I thinking wrongly? Where are my words not reflecting You? Where are my actions inconsistent with the love I say I want to live?” Correction doesn't have to become a courtroom where I defend myself. It can become another conversation with my best Friend.

And sometimes He may answer those questions through another person. That connects directly with what I saw in Proverbs 1 about remaining teachable. My Father may use a brother or sister to show me something about myself that I couldn't see alone. The fact that they don't say it perfectly doesn't mean there isn't something there for me. Even if part of what they say is wrong, I can still ask my Father whether there is something inside it that He wants me to hear.

Peter gives me a beautiful picture of this. Jesus knew Peter better than Peter knew himself. Peter was absolutely certain about his own courage and loyalty, but Jesus knew what pressure was going to reveal. Jesus didn't create Peter's betrayal in order to teach him a lesson, and He certainly didn't stop loving Peter when it happened. But after Peter's confidence in himself collapsed, Jesus met him there, restored him, and began building something much deeper in him.

Maybe that is another reason my Father doesn't show me everything at once. Yesterday I was thinking about wisdom He has stored up specifically for me, and perhaps some of that wisdom includes things about myself. He knows what I am ready to see. He knows when I can finally recognize something without being crushed by it, when I have learned enough about His love that correction no longer feels like rejection, and when I trust Him enough to let Him put His finger on something I have protected for years.

So perhaps one of the greatest evidences that I trust my Father isn't simply that I believe what He tells me about Himself. It is that I am willing to believe what He tells me about me. I can say “Okay” when He encourages me, “Okay” when He redirects me, “Okay” when He tells me to wait, and “Okay” when He lovingly shows me something inside myself that needs to change. I can receive all of it because I know the One speaking. He is my Father. He loves me. He delights in me. And anything He shows me is another treasure from Someone I trust.

As I meet with my Heavenly Father today, I pray, “Father, thank You that Your correction comes from Your love for me, not from rejection. Don't let me blame You for every painful thing that happens in this broken world, but don't let me waste anything You can use to teach me either. Wherever I find myself, meet me there and show me what You want me to see. If my thoughts aren't loving, show me. If my words have hurt someone, show me. If my actions are coming from fear, pride, selfishness, resentment, or control, show me. Use Scripture, Your Spirit, my brothers and sisters, or whatever You choose because I trust You enough to want the truth. I don't merely want the treasures that make me feel wise. I want everything You have stored up for me, including the things that correct me and make me more like You. I know You love me, I love You, and I trust You. Give me something to do today, Father, and whatever You ask of me, my answer is already, ‘Okay.’”

10/02/2026

Today’s Proverb: Proverbs 2:1–7

“My son, if you will receive my words
And treasure my commandments within you,
Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
Incline your heart to understanding;
For if you cry for discernment,
Lift your voice for understanding;
If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will discern the fear of the LORD
And discover the knowledge of God.
For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk in integrity.”

As I begin another trip through Proverbs, I am realizing how perfectly chapter two follows what I saw yesterday. Yesterday I was reminded that a wise person remains teachable, but today this father shows his son what that kind of learning looks like. Receive. Treasure. Make your ear attentive. Incline your heart. Cry for discernment. Lift your voice. Seek it like silver. Search for it like hidden treasure. This isn't casual interest. This is someone who has decided that what he is looking for is valuable enough to pursue with everything he has.

Then something beautiful happens in verses 5 through 7. After describing all of my searching, the father reminds me that I cannot actually produce the treasure I am searching for. “For the LORD gives wisdom.” I search, but He gives. I listen, study, pray, ask questions, receive counsel, think, wrestle, and keep digging, but ultimately whatever I truly see has been given to me by my Father. My effort doesn't create the treasure. It shows how much I value what only He can give me.

Then comes the phrase I especially love: “He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.” I picture my Father already possessing treasures of wisdom that I haven't seen yet. And because He knows me completely and loves me completely, I don't think what He has stored up for me is impersonal. He knows what I need to understand, what I am ready to understand, what I only think I understand, and what I may not be ready to see yet. He knows what He is preparing me for and what I will need farther down the road. My Father knows exactly which treasure I need next.

That makes this intensely personal. I have a Father who loves me enough to be concerned with what I know. He doesn't merely want me to accumulate correct information about Him. He wants me to know Him. He wants me to understand His heart, recognize His voice, see people increasingly as He sees them, and learn how to walk through this Life with Him. Because He loves me, He has things He wants to show me.

But love and trust run through the other side of this relationship too. If I love my Father, I want to know what He thinks. If I trust Him, I want to know what He wants. And if I really trust Him, I don't need to know what He is going to say before deciding whether I will do it. Trust allows me to say “Okay” in advance. Before He uncovers the treasure, before I know whether it will confirm what I already believe or overturn something I have believed for thirty years, I can settle the most important question: “Father, whatever You show me, I trust You.”

That makes me think differently about the wisdom He has stored up. Wisdom from God is no small thing. Why would I expect my Father to continually reveal precious things to me if I repeatedly show Him that I only want to know them but have no intention of living them? He isn't pouring treasure indiscriminately onto the ground. He gives wisdom, and perhaps part of growing in wisdom is becoming someone He can increasingly entrust with what He wants to reveal.

Jeremiah says, “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” That word “heart” means much more than feelings. It reaches into the whole governing self, made up of all my thoughts, desires, intentions, affections, and will. God isn't saying, “Feel very strongly about finding Me.” He is describing a search involving everything inside me. My mind is engaged, my desires are engaged, my will is engaged, my love is engaged, and my trust is engaged because I have decided that knowing Him is worth everything I can bring to the search.

And ultimately that is what makes this so beautiful. The treasure isn't merely wisdom. The treasure is Him. I search because I love Him and want to know Him. I keep searching because I trust that He wants to be known. And when He shows me something I should do, I say “Okay” because I have learned enough about His love to trust that whatever He asks of me is coming from the heart of my Father.

Jesus says something in John 7:17 that has become increasingly important to me: “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching.” I naturally want to reverse that order. I want God to explain everything first, answer all my questions, remove my uncertainty, convince me completely, and then let me decide whether I will obey. But Jesus connects knowing with already being willing to do.

Maybe that willingness is one of the clearest expressions of trust. I am not merely saying, “Father, teach me something.” I am saying, “Father, show me something and I am willing to live it out.” If He shows me something about forgiveness, I will forgive. If He shows me something about generosity, I will give. If He shows me that my words toward someone haven't been loving, I will change them and seek forgiveness from that person. If He exposes pride, fear, resentment, control, or selfishness hiding beneath something I have called wisdom, I want to see it. My answer doesn't depend upon whether I like what He shows me because my trust isn't ultimately in the wisdom. My trust is in Him.

And perhaps there is something wonderfully relational happening from both directions. I am learning that I can trust my Father with my life, and He is forming me into someone He can entrust with more of His wisdom. I don't mean that I earn His love or purchase revelation with good behavior. I mean that relationship grows through trust. When He shows me something and I say “Okay,” and then walk in it, I come to know Him more. Knowing Him makes me love Him more. Loving Him makes me trust Him more. And deeper trust makes the next “Okay” come a little more naturally.

Maybe that is why some wisdom remains stored up. There may be things my Father knows I cannot understand from where I am standing today. There are things about forgiveness I can study for years but begin to understand differently after actually forgiving someone who hurt me. There are things about trusting Him that I cannot learn while insisting on controlling every outcome. There are things about love I will never understand merely by defining it correctly because love has to become something I actually do.

So I don't picture my Father's stored-up wisdom as a giant warehouse of generic information. I picture a loving Father who knows each of His children completely. He knows where I am, what I need, what I have already learned, what I am ready to receive, and what He is preparing me to receive later. There are treasures He knows I need that I don't even know enough to look for yet.

That takes pressure off me without making me passive. I don't have to understand everything today, but I want to search for what my Father wants to show me today with all my heart. I can read carefully, think deeply, ask questions, listen to my brothers and sisters, reconsider assumptions, pray, wrestle, desire, and keep digging. But after all that searching, I still come with empty hands because the treasure remains His to give.

I search for what I cannot discover without Him, and He gives me what He knows I am ready to receive. My searching shows Him how much I value Him and the stored treasure He has prepared specifically for me, and me saying “Okay” in advance shows Him what I intend to do with it. Then every time I actually live what He shows me, something wonderful happens: I don't merely become wiser. I know my Father a little better. And because I know Him better, I love Him more. Because I love Him more, I trust Him more. And because I trust Him more, I become increasingly ready for whatever He has stored up to show me next.

As I meet with my Heavenly Father today, I pray, “Father, thank You for loving me enough to care about what I know and for storing up treasures of wisdom that I haven't even seen yet. Teach me to seek You with all my heart: To seek You with my thoughts, desires, intentions, affections, and will. I want to know You because I love You, and I want to hear what You have to say because I trust You. Make me someone You can entrust with more of Your wisdom, not merely because I want to understand it, but because I am willing to live it. I don't need to know what You are going to show me before deciding how I will respond. I know You, I know You love me, and I trust You. So whatever the treasure is, my answer is already ‘Okay.’ Let everything You teach me become visible in the way I think, speak, act, and love. Give me something to do today, Father, and whatever You ask of me, my answer is already, ‘Okay.’”

10/01/2026

Today’s Proverb: Proverbs 1:5

“A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.”

As I begin Proverbs again, I noticed something in the opening verses that I might have passed over before. The wise person in this verse isn't described as the person who finally knows everything. In fact, it is almost the opposite. The wise person is still listening, still learning, and still looking for counsel. Apparently one of the signs that I am becoming wise is not that I need other people less, but that I become increasingly aware of how much I still have to learn.

That challenges me because knowledge can do something strange to us. The more I study something, the easier it becomes to assume that I already understand it. After enough years of reading the Bible, teaching, making decisions, succeeding, failing, and accumulating experience, I can begin entering conversations primarily prepared to explain what I know. I may still technically be listening, but sometimes I am only listening long enough to decide whether I agree, identify what is wrong, or prepare what I am going to say next. And if my desire is really to love God and love people more, then I have to ask whether that kind of listening looks very much like love.

But this father tells his son that a wise man will hear. He doesn't say that only the inexperienced need to hear. The wise man hears, and because he continues hearing, he continues increasing in learning. That means wisdom apparently creates an appetite for more wisdom rather than convincing me that I have finally accumulated enough of it. And I don't want more wisdom simply so that I can know more. I want to know my Father more deeply so that I can love Him more completely, and I want that love to increasingly affect what I think about people, the words I speak to them, and the things I actually do.

Jesus makes this even more beautiful to me because He didn't call me merely into a private relationship with Himself. He placed me among brothers and sisters. The Body isn't simply a collection of people I am supposed to teach, encourage, help, correct, and love. They are also people through whom my Father may teach, encourage, correct, and love me. If I assume that God will usually speak through the people who know as much as I do, have studied as long as I have, or already see things the way I see them, I may miss something He has placed directly in front of me.

Someone can be wrong about ninety percent of what they are saying and still say the ten percent my Father wants me to hear. Someone younger than me may notice something I have missed. A new believer may ask a question that exposes an assumption I haven't examined in years. Someone who disagrees with me may force me to look at something again. Even someone who doesn't express a thought very well may be carrying something I need if I am humble enough to listen for it. And sometimes the most loving thing I can give another person isn't an answer at all. It may simply be enough patience to really hear what they are trying to tell me.

I see something of this in Jesus. He noticed people everyone else overlooked. He welcomed children when His disciples thought they were interruptions. He noticed a poor widow while others were impressed with larger gifts. He asked questions even when He already knew the answers, and He allowed people to speak who weren't considered important by the religious experts around Him. The One who actually knew everything never acted as though people were beneath His attention. His thoughts about people, His words to them, and His actions toward them all flowed from love.

That is increasingly what I want my own life to look like. I don't merely want to believe that I love God and people; I want love to become visible in the way I think about them when nobody hears my thoughts, in the words I choose when I could easily say something sharper, and in what I actually do when loving someone costs me something. I want my thoughts, words, and actions to increasingly agree with each other because they are all coming from the same Life inside me.

There is also something wonderfully peaceful about this. I don't have to carry the responsibility of knowing everything. I don't have to have an immediate answer to every question or defend every conclusion the moment someone challenges it. I can say, “I don't know.” I can say, “I never thought about it that way.” I can listen to someone without deciding in the first thirty seconds what I am going to teach them. I can even discover that I was wrong without feeling threatened because my identity was never supposed to come from being the person in the room who knows.

And because my Father loves me, I don't have to be afraid of discovering that I have been wrong. He isn't waiting to embarrass me. If He uses a brother or sister to show me something I haven't seen, that is love. If He exposes an assumption I have carried for thirty years, that is love. If He shows me that something in my thoughts, words, or actions isn't loving, that is love too. He isn't merely correcting my theology or improving my behavior. He is teaching me how to receive His love more deeply and then allow that same love to flow through me toward someone else.

Maybe that is one of the things this latest journey through Proverbs has been teaching me. Wisdom isn't supposed to make me increasingly independent. It should make me increasingly dependent on my Father and increasingly grateful for the people He has placed around me. And if all this learning doesn't result in knowing Him more, loving Him more, and loving the people around me more with my actual thoughts, words, and actions, then I have to wonder what all that knowledge has really accomplished.

So as I begin Proverbs again, maybe this is a good place to start. I don't want to open this book primarily looking for confirmation of everything I already believe. I want to hear. I want to learn. I want my Father to surprise me, correct me, deepen what I understand, and use whomever He chooses to do it. Most of all, I want everything He teaches me to make me more like Jesus, so that I love my Father more tomorrow than I do today and the people around me can actually experience some of that love through the way I think about them, speak to them, and treat them.

As I meet with my Heavenly Father today, I pray, “Father, keep me teachable. Don't let what I already know prevent me from hearing what You still want to teach me. Help me listen to You in Scripture, listen to Your Spirit, and listen to the brothers and sisters You have placed around me. Teach me to love You more with my thoughts, my words, and my actions, and let that love flow toward every person You place in front of me. Show me where my thoughts aren't loving, where my words don't sound like You, and where my actions don't match what I say I believe. I want to know You more, love You more, and become more like You as I learn to love others the way You have loved me. Give me something to do today, Father, and whatever You ask of me, my answer is already, ‘Okay.’”

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