When we inquire of God for wisdom, the Bible helps us find answers.
When you seek particular wisdom from God, Scripture should play an important role.
Psalm 119:24 says, “Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.”
Therefore as you seek wisdom, God’s words can counsel you.
Likewise Psalm 119:98–99 says, “Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. 99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.”
Therefore God’s commands not only tell us what God expects of us, but they also make us wise, which is again what we seek. To get that wisdom verse 99 says you should engage with Scripture in meditation. Repeat it over and over, break it down word by word and phrase by phrase, imagine what the words picture, draw implications from its assertions, trust its promises, think of ways to apply it.
Moreover, ask the Lord where to read Scripture to find the answer to your inquiry. That guidance can come in various ways. He might guide your heart in that very session of prayer, or he might do so a month or a year later. He might create an interest in reading a particular book of the Bible. Or as you follow your annual Bible-reading plan, he might providentially bring you to that place in Scripture where the needed wisdom lies. If you maintain your faith and your inquiry, your eyes will fall sooner or later on Bible verses that help answer your question, and you will recognize them as such.
How Scripture imparts the wisdom we seek
Therefore, when you ask God for wisdom on any matter, read the Bible with that question in mind, search Scripture for what it says on the subject, and meditate on relevant passages.
This is important for four reasons:
1. God might have spoken directly to the subject in his Word, and if not, he has given relevant principles.
For example, if a man asks for wisdom about how to improve his marriage, he can find specific help in Ephesians 5:22–33. On the other hand, if a woman asks for wisdom about how to protect her dog from catching ticks, she will not find anything in the Bible on that specific topic, but there might be relevant principles.
2. Setting your mind on Scripture brings the presence of God within.
Regardless of whether the Bible speaks to the question, whenever we read Scripture long enough with humility, faith, and reverence, our awareness of his presence increases. Our fellowship with God becomes more real, and the mind of Christ prevails in our mind. God’s presence and the wisdom we seek go well together.
3. Whatever Scripture says shapes you with wisdom in general and thus makes your mind a good environment for wisdom.
A heart filled with wisdom is a conducive place, a suitable environment, for the revealing of further wisdom on any specific subject. When you saturate your mind with Scripture, your mind develops an ecosystem of wisdom where further wisdom finds rich soil for growth.
4. Reading Scripture sanctifies you.
Jesus said, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).
Sanctification puts you in a right place with God and thus better able to receive from him.
The Bible tells several stories of people who sought information from God even though they had no intention of having a holy relationship with God. The results were negative.
For example, 1 Samuel 28 tells how King Saul inquired of God when he and his army faced an overwhelming enemy. But Saul had long been far from God and hardened in heart, so the Lord did not answer.
Still, Saul wanted information about the future, so he went to a fortune teller to see if she could contact the dead for the help he wanted. He had reached the ultimate, muddy bottom of his pathetic life, and he died in battle hours later.
(For other examples of people who inquired of God for information while rejecting God’s will for their lives, see Jeremiah 42; Ezekiel 20:1–32 [especially v. 31], and 1 Kings 22:1–40.)
Because we sin in many ways, we always need God’s counsel not only for our specific inquiry, but for the general sanctification of our lives. Holiness makes us better receivers of wisdom.
Takeaway
When we pray for wisdom, we should approach Scripture as our counselor and be open to all God wants to say to us, not just the answer to our question.
We should desire the full light of Jesus in his Word, both the street light and the focused laser beam. The way to have eyes that see and ears that hear God’s wisdom is to hunger for all he says, in all ways, about all things.
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)
When we pray for wisdom with reliance on the Holy Spirit, he imparts wisdom to us normally from within, in a way that seems like our own thoughts or feelings, but with divine clarity and calm.
As you seek wisdom for everything that matters to you, it is helpful to reflect on which member of the Trinity actually illumines your mind with that wisdom.
Jesus said, “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26, ESV).
First John 2:20, 27 says, “You have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge…. The anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.”
Pray for Wisdom with Reliance on the Holy Spirit
The One who imparts wisdom to you is God the Holy Spirit. His presence on you and in you is called “the anointing,” and thus in one sense his presence resembles oil smeared on your skin.
But his anointing goes deeper. His anointing is not merely on the surface. It “abides in you” (1 John 2:27). First Corinthians 6:19 says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?”
1 Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”
So the God who teaches you is not distant, out there somewhere external to you. Rather, he is as near to you as he can possibly be. His Holy Spirit has united with your human spirit. He now indwells you. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. He has anointed you as if smearing you with oil or pouring into you as into an oil jar.
As you seek wisdom for what matters to you, this means the divine person who will reveal that wisdom is as near as your own beating heart. And when you receive that wisdom, it will typically seem as though you conceived it yourself, rather than it coming like a voice from outside.
Your ceiling
Because you as a Christian have the Holy Spirit, your ceiling for wisdom is not your IQ—whatever that is in the physical human brain and immaterial spirit, and whatever it is that determines it. Rather, your ceiling is the divine knowledge of the Holy Spirit, which is unlimited.
First Corinthians 2:11–12 says, “No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.”
The Holy Spirit is able to reveal wisdom and knowledge to you in a way that also gives understanding. He is not limited like a human teacher, who can only explain and illustrate and so on, and then it is up to you to comprehend. A human teacher cannot get inside of your mind and actually enable you to understand—actually turn on the lights. But the Holy Spirit can do that.
The Holy Spirit understands the deepest thoughts of God, and he enables us to understand what he wants us to know.
What God is willing to teach you
Moreover, the Holy Spirit does not limit what he will teach about.
First John 2:27 says, “His anointing teaches you about everything.”
John 14:26 says, “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
This verse highlights what it means to have inside of you the Holy Spirit himself.
“the Helper” – Do you need help? Do you feel your limitations? Do you lack wisdom? The Holy Spirit lives in you in order to help you. He knows you need help and wants to give it to you. You are not asking him to do something outside of his divine role.
“whom the Father will send in my name” – The Holy Spirit cooperates with the other members of the Trinity to help you. He applies to you all the unlimited resources of the Sovereign Father and his beloved Son.
“he will teach you” – Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit himself will teach you. Trust him and be patient. He is the master teacher, along with the Father and the Son the most competent instructor in the universe. Place yourself in his competent hands as a teachable student.
“all things” – Things like understanding the Bible; overcoming stubborn sin; managing your work, body, emotions, ministry, and finances; organizing your home and possessions; overcoming challenges and problems; and having a healthy marriage, single life, family, and relationships of all kinds.
“bring to your remembrance” – He not only teaches what you do not know, he helps you remember what you have forgotten.
How George Washington Carver learned to help poor farmers
George Washington Carver’s scientific work on behalf of poor farmers is an example of the Holy Spirit’s willingness to help those who depend on him with anything they need to know. A Christian and botanist who lived from 1864 to 1943, Carver taught at the Tuskegee Institute in the years after the emancipation of slaves in America and devoted his work to helping former slaves become self-sustaining farmers.
One significant challenge they faced was poor soil depleted of nitrogen by generations of planting cotton year after year. To address that need Carver taught the necessity of crop rotation. In alternating seasons, farmers needed to plant crops like peanuts and sweet potatoes, which restored nitrogen to the soil. But peanuts were not a profitable crop, and farmers balked. Carver realized he needed to create demand by discovering new uses for them.
So he prayed for God’s understanding, and then he went into his lab, which he called “God’s little laboratory,” and followed God’s leading.
Over time he identified more than 300 uses for the peanut and published 105 food recipes using peanuts.
To demonstrate the value of his discoveries, writes Glenn Clark, “He himself took a plot of land that was 19 acres of the worst land in Alabama to experiment on to find what could be done to improve production. The first year it brought him a net loss of $16.25 an acre. After his first year of scientific treatment and cultivation it showed a profit of $4.00 [an acre]. Within another year the profit was $40.00 an acre and every following year brought better returns.”1
For perspective, at the time, in the South “most of the farmers contrive their best to live on an average cash income of $310 a year per family of five persons.”1
Quotations from George Washington Carver
Carver said:
“As I worked on projects which fulfilled a real human need, forces were working through me which amazed me. I would often go to sleep with an apparently insoluble problem. When I woke, the answer was there.”
“Believe. The promises of God are real. They are as real, as solid, yes infinitely more solid than this table which the materialist so thoroughly believes in. If you would only believe, O ye of little faith.”
“God is going to reveal to us things he never revealed before if we put our hands in his. No books ever go into my laboratory. The thing I am to do and the way of doing it are revealed to me. I never have to grope for methods. The method is revealed to me the moment I am inspired to create something new. Without God to draw aside the curtain I would be helpless.”
“There is no shortcut to achievement.”
“Start where you are, with what you have. Make something of it and never be satisfied.”
“Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also if you love them enough.”
Honors
That Carver helped poor farmers, accomplished extraordinary things, and had enormous positive effects on his fellow Americans both black and white is beyond question.
After Carver died in 1943, “President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri, the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president.”2
Among many more honors and recognitions, “in 1977, Carver was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. In 1990, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1994, Iowa State University awarded Carver a Doctor of Humane Letters. In 2000, Carver was a charter inductee in the USDA Hall of Heroes as the ‘Father of Chemurgy.’ In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed George Washington Carver as one of 100 Greatest African Americans.”2
(Lawrence Elliott’s biography on Carver inspired me: George Washington Carver: The Man Who Overcame. It is probably available at your library.)
Life principle
When seeking God’s wisdom, people often look for external guidance of some sort, such as a voice or a sign, or for dramatic guidance that is unlike their normal experience. But it is God the Holy Spirit who imparts wisdom to you, normally from within your human spirit, in a way that will usually feel like your own thoughts or feelings, but with divine clarity and calm.
God wants to help you if you will persevere. The Holy Spirit is your helper. Like Carver, we can learn to work with him. He will teach us what we need to know.
A Prayer: Lord, teach me how to work with the Holy Spirit. Teach me how to receive wisdom and help from him. Holy Spirit, I need and request your help in ________. In Jesus’ name, amen.
1. Glenn Clark, “The Man Who Talks with the Flowers,” (Kindle location 568 of 638)
2. Wikipedia, “George Washington Carver”
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)
You will be more successful at praying for wisdom if you have a method that keeps you on track and on target.
Here are five practical guidelines on how to pray for wisdom that will keep you on track and on target.
1. Journal
For those who dislike writing, Hosea 14:2 says something important about seeking God: “Take with you words” (ESV). Words are important to God. He gives what you ask for. Your request should not be a shifting, constantly moving target.
So write exactly what you want God to answer, modify it along the way as needed, but settle in on your inquiry. Then you will know when he answers, and you will be able to give him thanks as he deserves and share your testimony for the encouragement of others and the glory of God.
If you do not keep a journal, your inquiries will lose focus, and most of them will be forgotten and abandoned when persistence is required. The journal is therefore the key to taking an inquiry fully from the question to its complete, life-changing answer.
My journal for inquiring of God for wisdom is a file on my desktop computer as well as a note in my Evernote app because I work at my computer all day and I want the flexibility of a Word processing application so all the entries for a single inquiry can be in one place. But you may want to buy a spiral notebook or a high-quality, blank journal. Whatever you use, dedicate it to this purpose because as your ability grows in praying for wisdom successfully it will revolutionize your life, and you will inquire of God more and more.
2. Collect your inquiries
I have dozens of requests for which I am awaiting God’s wisdom.
To develop a reliable method of inquiring of God you need to have a good number of questions both major and minor on many concerns. If you focus only on one problem area, you might have trouble for a while getting a breakthrough to success in that area and getting the experience you need in praying for wisdom successfully. So collect prayers for wisdom about work, marriage and family, your finances, questions about the Bible, giving order to your house, and more.
3. Grid
For each inquiry, begin with the following information:
Your precise inquiry
For example: Lord, please give me your wisdom about how to work smoothly with my supervisor.
Dates inquiry begun and completed
For example: November 11, 2021 – January 14, 2022
Dates inquiry answered partially or fully
For example: Partial answers on November 11, 2021 (page number 14), November 13, 2021 (page number 16), December 3, 2021 (page number 22), January 10, 2022 (page number 27). Summary of full wisdom received on page 28
The wisdom received
For example: I need to give my supervisor more feedback on my projects at regular times during the process, especially when problems arise, so that she is not surprised with bad news when something is due. (Wisdom received on November 13, 2021)
Lessons learned about inquiring of God
For example: In this inquiry I received the most wisdom when I prayed and journaled early in the morning before going to work.
4. Time
Depending on how important an inquiry is to you and how much time is available, you can vary the amount of time actually praying, listening passively, and thinking before God:
15 seconds – 3 minutes
5 – 20 minutes
1 hour
Half day
Full day
2 – 3 full days
5. Elements
The more time you take, the more of the following helpful elements you can include:
You might want to fast.
Begin by setting a time frame. This helps you persevere especially if you plan to pray for a long time.
If you have not done so already, write your question.
Establish your faith. Quote and meditate on Scripture promises such as James 1:5 and Matthew 7:7–8 until your faith is firm.
Confess and repent of sin.
If you are distracted by unrelated concerns, clear your mind by casting those burdens on the Lord.
Surrender to God. Express your love toward him. Dedicate this inquiry to the glory of God.
Worship and give thanks, in particular for his infinite knowledge and wisdom. Meditate on Christ as the one “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).
Pause and quiet your mind. As you are quiet, write any thoughts pertaining to your question that may be from God.
Read Scripture.
If you have the gift, pray in tongues.
Again state your inquiry to God.
Wait on God until you can wait patiently and with a quiet spirit.
Listen.
Think and write for as long as thoughts flow.
Thank God for the wisdom received.
Again, use only the elements above that you have time for.
Conclusion
I encourage you to develop by practice a method of seeking God for wisdom that works for you. Keep practicing until your method is proven and effective.
That does not happen in a few days or weeks, because as we have seen, God does not answer all of our inquiries quickly. Moreover, some of our inquiries will be large in scale and significance, the kind that usually do not get answered overnight or in one brief installment. On the other hand, other inquiries will be relatively minor and receive answers in one session of prayerful waiting on the Lord.
All this can be a lot of work! But one gift of wisdom from God can change your life completely.
Moreover as you learn to pray for wisdom for everything that matters to you, you will come to know how to walk with God in handling the day-to-day challenges of life, and you will trust him more than you ever have before. You will prove to yourself and others that nothing is more relevant to daily life in this world than truly knowing God.
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)
Last night a woman in our church told how God had just given her success on a large, important project at work.
She is a website architect working for a big downtown bank that hired her specifically to upgrade their site’s interface for those with disabilities.
One impossible job
But everyone with whom she directly worked told her: You can’t do this. You will fail. You don’t have the necessary intelligence for this.
Indeed, she agreed. She didn’t know how to do it.
No one knew how to do what the bank was asking. One technician told her he could not do in a year even part of what the company was asking to be done in six months. These were uncharted waters.
She feared what would happen if she failed. That she would lose her job and pay. That she would have to move away.
Unceasing prayer
So she called out to God. All day long, every day, she prayed fervently over every detail, every web page, every line of code. She literally wept and prayed. She felt small and vulnerable.
Butshe also had fierce conviction that God was great enough to help her with an impossible job. She kept crying out to God day after day, planning functionalities, writing code, telling her team of developers what to do. She worked hard. Day after day she received wisdom for one piece of the project after another. Every step and idea was a discovery.
And so, week after week, one piece, one page, one functionality of the website after another came together. Months passed and the progress continued. The hand of God was upon her, and he blessed her entire team.
Great success
With the deadline approaching they were ready to release their work. They were ready to go live with approximately eighty new web pages of cutting edge technology.
On the day of release they discovered one minor problem. Just one easily fixed bug. But everything else worked flawlessly.
Last night our website architect told this story and enthusiastically gave God all the glory.
Divine wisdom for impossible jobs
As she spoke, a Scripture came to my mind, and when she finished I read it.
The story is about a young man whom a pagan king recruited to serve in his court. For three years he received training in the language, literature, and wisdom of that culture. At the end of that period, he Daniel and three Hebrew friends were brought before the king for a final exam.
“And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom” (Daniel 1:20).
Proverbs 2:6 says, “The LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.”
James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
2 Timothy 2:7 says, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”
Do you need to be a pastor to know God and his ways, to experience God working at your right hand?
No, you just need to have work to do. You need to sense your need of God’s help, to know that you can’t do anything apart from him. And you need to cry out to him with faith continually. To work hard. And then watch God work. In the end you will give him glory.
