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)