Month: September 2021

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Pray for Wisdom and Think Diligently

God’s wisdom comes to those who pray for it and think diligently.

think diligently

We learn another important principle about praying for wisdom from the coaching that the apostle Paul gave to his protégé Timothy. In his second letter to Timothy, who is serving as pastor of the church in Ephesus, Paul wants Timothy to learn further wisdom about how to succeed in his work for the Lord.

Think

Paul begins by giving in rapid succession three brief analogies:

“No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

“An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.

“It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.” (2 Timothy 2:4, 5, 6)

Paul does not explain the meaning of the analogies. Rather, in verse 7 he says, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”

Think diligently

Notice that Paul is confident and full of faith that the Lord will give Timothy understanding—wisdom. But it will not come without work, without the hard work of thinking. “Think over what I say.” He requires that Timothy think diligently over these three analogies until they yield their wisdom.

We might call that process meditation or reflection, reasoning or analysis. Timothy might write as he thinks. He might share the fruit of his mental exercise with others as he works through it. But one thing is clear: this is not passive, but active. His mind is not in neutral. He is not waiting for God to drop a thought into his mind. Rather, he is asking questions of these analogies, visualizing them, attempting to distill from them the principles and application Paul intends.

And what Paul is confident of, probably because he is also praying that God will reveal to Timothy the understanding he needs, is that as Timothy thinks, wisdom will enter his heart (Proverbs 2:10). Timothy will probably not even recognize that God is the one causing the light bulb to come on; it will seem as though he suddenly came to understand it on his own; nevertheless God will be the one who enables Timothy’s mental work to yield the fruit of understanding.

This is one more example of the principle of human cooperation with God. An airplane has two wings; which wing enables it to fly?

When supernatural thoughts come naturally

There is another remarkable Scripture about God himself supernaturally giving wisdom to a person in a way that seems utterly natural. The subject of the passage in Isaiah is good farmers and how they get their skill. Like me, you are probably not a farmer, and so you will not readily grasp each of the points Isaiah makes about the practical rules of good farming, but that is not the point. Rather, notice to whom the prophet Isaiah gives credit for this farmer’s good understanding:

“Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground? When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and emmer as the border? For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him. Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin, but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod. Does one crush grain for bread? No, he does not thresh it forever; when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it. This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.” (Isaiah 28:24–29)

What I find remarkable about this is the exalted credit Isaiah gives God for what seem like mundane principles of successful farming, principles that this wise farmer may have heard from his father when he was a boy, or principles that he learned from trial and error over several years. These were not things he heard from an angel, a dream, or vision. That is, these were not things he learned in ways that seemed like divine interventions.

Yet, according to Isaiah, the farmer “is rightly instructed; his God teaches him….This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.” The farmer is active, and God is active. The farmer thought about his farming, and wisdom entered his heart (Proverbs 2:10).

Trial and error. Learning from mistakes. Learning from success. Observing cause and effect. Having a teachable heart. Intentionally pursuing and writing down best practices. Remembering the advice of one’s elders. Thinking, reflection, meditation. When these things are mixed with prayer, faith, patience, and God’s promises, lo and behold—wisdom.

Think diligently with paper or pixels

Related to all the above, I have one practical suggestion. Keep a journal, digital or hard copy. Writing is just recording your thinking. Have a section for each subject or question. Write your questions and answers and everything in between. The more you write, the more you will understand. Writing helps you think far better, far wider, far deeper.

You might write in complete sentences or in bullet points. You might scatter words and phrases around on a page in a thought cloud or link them with lines in a thought tree. Do what works for you, but record your thoughts no matter how simple they seem, because there is something about writing thoughts that causes more thoughts to come. Writing turns an occasional drop of rain into a shower, and sometimes a lightning storm.

Now and then go back and read what you have written, organize the helpful thoughts, and develop conclusions. Thinking is an adventure into the unknown. It is messy and fun and satisfying. It is unpredictable.

And it takes work. “I [wisdom] love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me” (Proverbs 8:17).

Paul was right, and this is the word of the Lord: “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:7).

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

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Pray for Wisdom with Faith

We must pray for wisdom with faith because a double-minded person will not receive anything from the Lord. Here is how you can develop the necessary faith.

pray for wisdom with faith

The most encouraging verse in the Bible about praying for wisdom is James 1:5. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (ESV).

However, it is immediately followed by a warning that might make you lose heart. “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:6–8)

Knowing that an answer to prayer depends on your faith can make you lose faith! If everything depends on God, we can be confident because we know he is reliable. But if something depends on us, we can despair because we know how far short we fall of perfection, especially perfect faith. And we know how our emotions can ride a roller coaster.

There is no way around it, though. If you want to learn how to pray for wisdom for everything that matters to you, you must learn to pray with faith.

And you can do it.

You can pray for wisdom with faith

Again, you can do it. God will help you if you will enter the school of faith. Depending on how strong or weak your faith is now, it may take a while to learn to pray for wisdom with faith, but you can and will learn if you depend on God and persevere.

Praying for wisdom is an outstanding exercise for developing the muscle of faith. You build faith by using it, by going through the ups and downs of having faith for a request but then losing it—but not giving up. You again press in to God’s promises to regain faith. And you may go through that cycle many times, but if you do not quit, if you do not give up in despair, if you come back to your senses—to the bedrock reality that God is absolutely faithful—and keep choosing to believe God’s Word, you will find that the episodes of doubt come less often and are weaker and weaker.

Meanwhile your foundation of faith gets deeper and deeper, stronger and stronger, to the point where faith dominates your soul. And finally you come to the place where, changing the metaphor, all the oxygen for doubt is gone. Doubt suffocates and dies. And the only thing left standing and breathing is indomitable faith.

That is your future, my friend, if you will enter into the school of regularly praying for wisdom and staying at it until wisdom enters your heart (Proverbs 2:10).

Day one is decisive

Daniel 10:12 shows one key principle of faith. In previous posts in this series we saw that an angel appeared to Daniel, who for three weeks had been earnestly inquiring of God for wisdom. The angel said:

“Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words” (Daniel 10:12).

There is a crucial principle about how to pray for wisdom with faith: believe that the moment you pray God has heard you. Notice the past tense: “From the first day…your words have been heard.”

That is not unique to this verse in Daniel. In the New Testament God promises this to all Christians as we pray according to his will. First John 5:14–15 says, “This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” Again we see that the answer comes when we pray.

Jesus himself states this truth. “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). In the past tense you received it, and in the future tense it will be yours. So God has heard your request and determined to give you the wisdom you seek, but he may not do so immediately, or even soon. You have to keep faith that God has heard you for as long as he in his wisdom requires.

You can do it with his help. He will give you grace, for he delights in your faith.

Your words are decisive

I love the last few words from the angel in Daniel 10:12: “your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.”

Do you recognize the weight of your own words? Do you realize how much attention God pays to your words, how much spiritual glory and power they have? And do you appreciate how decisive your words are in God’s sight?

Granted, some teachers, both Christian and non-Christian, have taken this to an extreme, but do not overreact to unbiblical extremes to the point that you lose the reality clearly taught in Scripture. Words that accord with the will of God are the currency of his kingdom. Pray for wisdom with faith that your words are heard in heaven—and it is done (James 1:5–8).

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

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Pray for Wisdom Without Presuming How God Will Answer

We should pray for wisdom without presumption about how God will answer, because he answers prayers in countless different ways and at times we do not expect.

pray for wisdom without presumption

If you are like me, you head into a time of asking God for wisdom with a hope about how and when he will answer. If I fast and pray and clear my calendar to do nothing but seek him with a listening ear, surely he will give me the wisdom I seek that day, hopefully within a few hours.

Moreover, my earnest hope is that I will “hear God.” That is, that words and thoughts will form in my mind with a clarity and emphasis that could suggest these thoughts are from God rather than me, giving the answer I seek. Or I will read the Bible and fall upon verses that leap off the page with exactly what I need to do. Or that day someone will say something to me that providentially, unknown to him, is “the word of the Lord.”

Disappointed

Expectations like these are why I am usually disappointed on the day I seek God earnestly for wisdom. I have heard plenty of stories by people who have such experiences, but they are rare for me, and strangely, seem more rare the older I get. I suggest you do not base your expectations on my experiences, but if you can identify with me, let them encourage you. If God does not give prompt, clear direction when you seek him for guidance and counsel, you are not unusual.

For this reason I strongly counsel you to pray for wisdom without trying to control how God answers. Have an open mind to how and when he will give the wisdom you seek. He almost certainly will not do as you expect, and he probably will answer every new request for wisdom differently than how he has answered previous inquiries. God likes variety.

You never know

For example, look in the Gospels at all the different ways Jesus healed people. He might lay his hand on the sick person, or merely speak a healing command, or spit on the ground to make mud and apply it to the blind eyes, or stick his fingers in deaf ears, or spit on his finger and touch a mute tongue, or healing virtue would flow to those who touched his cloak.

When we pray for wisdom, there are countless situations through which God can breathe the answer. A book. A conversation. A wise mentor. Your evaluation of recent efforts. A dream. Your analytical thinking or research. Prayer. Reading the Bible. A seminar, webinar, conference. Practice. Your gradual, one-percent improvement each time you do what you are trying to learn and seek to improve for the next time.

Or through an angel. Okay, that might not be the most likely answer, but that is how Daniel received his answer in Daniel 10. Again, you never know, and you probably cannot guess. God surprises us if we pray with faith and keep the faith for as long as necessary (James 1:5–8).

Keeping Faith

As I said in a previous post, I have been focused in prayer for over three years on getting wisdom for how to win converts and enfold them in our church. God has taught me much in that time, but I have not yet had the breakthrough insights I need.

Nevertheless, I know they are coming, for I believe. (James 1:5–8, Matthew 21:22, which literally reads, “All things whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”) Scripture calls Abraham the man of faith (Galatians 3:9, ESV), and he had to wait decades for some answers, and longer for others, even hundreds of years after he died.

Daniel had to wait three weeks for the wisdom he sought (Daniel 10:13). But the reason he had to wait was the angelic messenger bearing his answer faced satanic interference that delayed him. Otherwise Daniel would have had his answer promptly (Daniel 10:12). That tells me there are innumerable reasons unknown to us why an answer to our prayer can be delayed. And there are innumerable means God may use to give the answer. God sent an angel to Daniel, and he may send a human to give your answer. It could be anyone, communicating in any way, in-person or through any media.

Pray for Wisdom without Presumption

Therefore it is essential that you maintain your faith and keep seeking an answer (through prayer, research, practice, or however) for as long as necessary. Do not presume to require God to answer in a particular way.

Be open, flexible, persistent. Keep exploring, seeking.

And stay alert to what may be the divine answer you seek. In other words, if you are tending sheep in the desert and see a bush on fire that keeps burning and is not consumed, turn aside and pay attention (Exodus 3). Since I am seeking wisdom for effective evangelism, I should take notice if someone I know says out of the blue, “I just read a tremendous book on evangelism, and I am already seeing fruit from what I learned in it.”

Pray for wisdom without presumption about how God will answer. I am not disappointed when I pray for wisdom with faith and persistence and do not require that God answer me in extraordinary ways. His wisdom sooner or later enters my heart (Proverbs 2:10).

And remember, learning to pray for wisdom for everything that matters to you is an important way to know God practically, in daily experience, as someone you can rely on to help you. Knowing God and his ways is not just an intellectual experience; it is also a lived out experience of prayer, trust, and dependence. If we know how to explain God doctrinally but do not know how to depend on him for what we need in life, we are missing something important and wonderful.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

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Pray for Wisdom Earnestly

When you pray for wisdom earnestly, you signal to God that you mean business and you believe God is your true source.

pray for wisdom earnestly

In this post we continue to draw principles about praying for wisdom from Daniel 10 and James 1:5. The first principle was that we should set our heart to understand. The second principle was that we should humble ourselves before God. The third principle is that we should pray earnestly.

We need to pray

We need to actually pray. In a knowledge culture like ours, in which we have how-to videos on YouTube on every subject imaginable, as well as webinars, books, apps, freelance experts, and university courses in abundance, it is easy to focus our attention there first. We may not feel as though we need to ask God as though it all depends on him; we just need to research the subject. Research feels as though it gives quicker, clearer, more tangible results. We control the process. The steps toward our goal are clear before us: read this book, take that class, follow this formula.

Earnest prayer, on the other hand, can feel like an open-ended waste of time. We can feel as though we aren’t doing anything. And most of us would not say we get into a real dialogue with God in which he speaks unmistakably to us with the wisdom we seek, or as Daniel experienced, have an angel come and coach us. We present our request, and we wait. We conclude our praying often feeling no closer to an answer. There is much that is unknown, except by faith.

We need God more than wisdom

Nevertheless, as we pursue wisdom, we need to pray like we mean business. Prayer must be the foundation of our pursuit just as a well-built house must have a foundation. James 4:2 says, “You do not have, because you do not ask God.”

God does not appreciate being ignored. Everything, including wisdom, is “from him and through him and to him” (Romans 11:36). “The LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6). Even if he uses a coach or a book as his means to impart crucial wisdom to us, our situation and who we are in our personality and abilities differ from the person from whom we are learning. Unless God blesses the wisdom, unless he reveals to us how to use it effectively, unless he works in the situation and people around us, the wisdom we learn from others will not get the results they had. We need God and his hand upon us, not merely wisdom.

And thus we need to pray to him. Earnest prayer signals to God that we truly believe we cannot do anything without him. We believe what Jesus said: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

We need to pray for wisdom earnestly

Daniel’s example also shows the value of earnest prayer. Daniel said, “In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks” (Daniel 10:2–3).

We see Daniel’s earnestness in his partial fasting from certain foods and physical comforts and in the three-week duration of his focused seeking of God with his question.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (ESV). Other translations say, “he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (NIV) or “diligently seek him” (NKJV) or “sincerely seek him” (NLT).

We do not have to fast to receive wisdom from God, but it can only help. The greater is our need for wisdom, and the more difficult that wisdom has been to get, the more sense it makes to fast and wait on God for extended periods as we “set our hearts to understand” (Daniel 10:12) a question.

I do not enjoy fasting (taking no food and drinking only water), and I rarely do it for longer than 20 hours, but I love the results. It gives spiritual focus and clarity like nothing else. For me it is the ultimate way to set my heart to understand. Daniel shows that partial fasting is also an effective way to earnestly seek the Lord.

Fasting is not a silver bullet

I caution, though, against fasting with any thought that by it we can manipulate God. Fasting is not a hunger strike, nor can we use it to twist God’s arm. God answers prayer according to his will, in his time, in his way—even if we torture ourselves with fasting for years! The purpose of fasting is to humble yourself, focus your mind, clear your spirit, and to signal to God that you are serious, that you are seeking him with all your heart and soul about this matter.

Sometimes God is looking for that. Deuteronomy 4:29 says, “But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

If you fast and pray for part or all of a day but do not receive the wisdom you seek during that time, you must not feel that “it didn’t work” or you wasted your time. Rather, that day laid the foundation for the answer, or added more floors to the foundation already laid. It is part of the process all of which God intends for your good. He has a reason for extending the process. He may be testing your faith.

Hebrews 10:35–36 says, “Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”

Take it by faith that you have the answer (1 John 5:14–15) and that God’s wisdom will enter your heart (Proverbs 2:10) in his perfect timing.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)