The starting point for acquiring wisdom
is to be consumed with awe as you worship Jehovah-God.
To receive the revelation of the Holy One,
you must come to the one who has living-understanding.
Wisdom will extend your life,
making every year more fruitful than the one before.
(Proverbs 9:10, 11 TPT)
If you wait at wisdom’s doorway,
longing to hear a word for every day,
joy will break forth within you as you listen for what I’ll say.
For the fountain of life pours into you every time that you find me,
and this is the secret of growing in the delight
and the favor of the Lord.
(Proverbs 8: 34,35 TPT)
I love this spot down by the creek near my house. Sometimes I sit quietly on the park bench and wait for my soul to be at peace.
I heard a new word recently — orthopathy. Orthodoxy is thinking in alignment with God. Orthopraxy is acting in alignment with God. Orthopathy is feeling in alignment with God. It comes from ortho – right, and pathos –intense feelings of compassion.
Emotions are part of who we are as those created in God’s image. God has feelings and strong affections, but they flow from a unified heart filled with love. Jesus wept with compassion. There was no “it-is-what-it-is” emotional distancing when he engaged with real people with real problems. We are also told that he was ecstatic with joy when he saw who God chose to reveal his plan to first.
Our emotions tend to run all over the place like sticks caught in eddies of turbulent water. That’s why some people shut them off; they are afraid they will be swept away. Others wallow in emotion, having lost their footing long ago. Jesus offers to heal our emotions too, because healthy feelings are an important part of wholeness.
I think the reason I like the Psalms so much is that David and the other Psalmists are neither bereft of emotion nor do they plop down in despair or spin in giddy distraction forever. They rejoice. They wail. They lament. They admit feeling perplexed. But in the end they rein in affections to agree with God’s way of thinking and acting as they unwrap his words, his actions, his character, his promises. They soak in his words.
Fill your thoughts with my [Wisdom’s] words
until they penetrate deep into your spirit.
Then, as you unwrap my words,
they will impart true life and radiant health
into the very core of your being.
So above all, guard the affections of your heart,
for they affect all that you are.
Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being,
for from there flows the wellspring of life.
(Proverbs 4:21-23 TPT)
Today I have been asking, “What’s really going on here?” Spiritual discernment involves far more than sensing something is off and coming up with an argument to beat someone at I-know-more-Bible-quotes-than-you. Spiritual discernment is also far more than sensing something is on, because it backs up my opinions.
Spiritual discernment means gaining a sense of that which is not obvious — the forces and mindsets that influence us without our being aware of them unless we learn to pay attention. Discernment means stepping back out of the current of flooding emotion or the apparent logic of “facts and statistics.” It’s not suspicion. It’s not cynicism. It’s a matter of seeing the bigger picture and understanding the times.
I have also been asking for wisdom. It is one thing to see things as they are and another to understand what to do to bring about change. May I admit the phrase, “It is what it is,” feels like defeat to me? I react with irritation, particularly when it’s delivered with a sigh of hopelessness.
There must be more than this. Which voice is telling me there is no hope? Which voice is reminding me Jesus promised he will never leave me and his grace is the empowering force to transform me into what he sees when he looks at me? Which voice am I actually paying attention to?
I didn’t feel very powerful today. I was tired of dealing with another life test. I needed to get away and go for a walk with the Lover of my soul. No talking. No doing. Just being. Just listening.
When I got home I read this:
My child, never drift off course from these two goals for your life:
to walk in wisdom and to discover discernment.
Don’t ever forget how they empower you.
For they strengthen you inside and out
and inspire you to do what’s right;
you will be energized and refreshed by the healing they bring.
They give you living hope to guide you,
and not one of life’s tests will cause you to stumble.
(Proverbs 3:21-23 TPT)
Lord, thank your for your never-failing love. Reveal to us the way that leads to wisdom and discernment. We thank you for provision for empowerment, strength, inspiration, energy, refreshment and healing. Show us how not to drift into distraction but keep our eyes fixed on You, our living hope.
The Lord laid the earth’s foundations with wisdom’s blueprints.
By his living-understanding all the universe came into being.
By his divine revelation he broke open
the hidden fountains of the deep,
bringing secret springs to the surface
as the mist of the night dripped down from heaven.
(Proverbs 3:20 TPT)
Heavenly wisdom centers on purity, peace, gentleness, deference, mercy, and other good fruits untainted by hypocrisy.
The seed that flowers into righteousness will always be planted in peace by those who embrace peace.
(James 3:17, 18 The Voice)
In the midst of darkness, evil, and turmoil, the wise have learned to embrace peace, to hold on, and not let go. They plant the seeds of change.
“In perplexities — when we cannot tell what to do, when we cannot understand what is going on around us, let us be calmed and steadied and made patient by the thought that what is hidden from us is not hidden from Him.”
~Frances Ridley Havergal
If you wait at wisdom’s doorway,
longing to hear a word for every day,
joy will break forth within you as you listen for what I’ll say.
For the fountain of life pours into you every time that you find me,
and this is the secret of growing in the delight
and the favor of the Lord.
(Proverbs 8:34, 35 TPT)
C. S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.
– Philip Yancey
Charis: Subject to Change 