Wednesday, February 24, 2021

A Proverbs 30 Man

 

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

The sayings of Agur son of Jakeh contain this message.  I am weary, O God; I am weary and worn out, O God.  I am too stupid to be human, and I lack common sense.  I have not mastered human wisdom, nor do I know the Holy One.  Who but God goes up to heaven and comes back down?  Who holds the wind in his fists?  Who wraps up the oceans in his cloak?  Who has created the whole wide world?  What is his name—and his son’s name?  Tell me if you know!  Every word of God proves true.  He is a shield to all who come to him for protection.  Do not add to his words, or he may rebuke you and expose you as a liar.  O God, I beg two favors from you; let me have them before I die.  First, help me never to tell a lie.  Second, give me neither poverty nor riches!  Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.  For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?”  And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.  Proverbs 30:1-9

Funerals teach a lot to ministers.  For some reason, the first one I preached for a woman intimidated me.  So I asked my mentor, a retired minister, for advice on which Scriptures to use, and how to approach the service.  He steered me to Proverbs 31, and the attributes of a wise, industrious, loving woman of her time.  That service message was entitled A Proverbs 31 Kind of Woman.

I’m sure I’ve read the preceding chapter (30) written by Agur, a man who calls himself too stupid to be a human.  But truth be told, I never got the message.  (Perhaps I’m related to the author). 

The message of a Proverbs 30 man is an honest, humble assessment of humanity’s wisdom held up against the backdrop of God’s wisdom.  A person who is not too stupid to be a human immediately recognizes there isn’t much competition in that beauty pageant.  I would suppose Agur is being humble to a fault, but he admits to not having mastered human wisdom  Being aware of man’s foolishness, compared to the majesty of JHWH, is the sum of human wisdom.

Agur then offers a prayer request to the LORD, one which I hadn’t considered in a long time.  He asks two distinctly related blessings that dovetail into one spiritually-wise life principle.  First, he asks that God grant him the moral courage to be truthful.  Second, Agur displays that God is already answering the first request by praying that God not grant him riches or poverty, but rather for material needs to be met so they can fade into the background.  Agur asks for the middle ground.  He’s admitting riches or poverty can shake his relationship with God.  That avoids the lie to which most of us give-in.

Riches tend to give humans a sense of self-sufficiency; who needs God when you’ve got the world by the tail?  Just ask Solomon, or any other rich guy.  On the other hand, ask any poor man if he’s ever been tempted to steal.  If he’s as honest as Agur, he’ll have to say “yup”!

Agur’s wisdom is on display.  He knows riches and poverty are traps that, when sprung, reveal just how imprisoned and estranged a man can be from God.  The proof of this is the character and integrity of God, the Creator, Who is rich beyond our dreams (and even Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, or Donald Trump).  Yet God became poor for our sake[1] on a cross, that we might have access to His riches.

So, the Proverb writer takes a pass on riches, because he doesn’t want to become arrogant, and asks that the temptation inherent in poverty be removed so he won’t insult God’s name by stealing.  This lines up dead-level with the first point of his two-pronged prayer, that God grant Agur truthfulness.  Rejecting the lure of material blessings is a statement of truth about knowing one’s own weakness.  Agur is not only truthful, he is also wise enough to know himself.  This is a Proverbs 30 kind of man worth emulating.

For You Today

Hang a picture of Agur in your brain’s living room.  The next time you turn on the TV and hear a prosperity message from Hollywood or Lakewood, remember Agur’s wisdom…and change channels.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

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