Godly Contentment!

Godly Contentment – My Daily Bread!

Our call to hear the wisdom of the Lord is taken from Proverbs 30: 7-9, NIV, which reads:

“Two things I ask of you, O Lord; do not refuse me before I die: keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.  Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’  Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God”.    

This passage is known as the Prayer of Agur, which is tucked at the end of the Book of Wisdom, written by an unknown prophet who is believed to have lived in the days of Solomon.

This passage is a prayer for Godly contentment, a contentment that can guard our hearts from either not appreciating our God or from not knowing God.   Agur recognized that he could not be true to God on his own and humbly requested God’s help in two areas.  He requested (1) an honest heart and (2) knowing God as his complete sufficiency.  This payer asks us to request of God only what is necessary to serve Him, our portion of God’s allotment that would sustain us each day.   It acknowledges that anything more or less can lead our hearts into folly and away from the Living God.

Are you surprised that this prayer does not ask for riches, but only my daily bread?    God in His infinite wisdom knows that too much or too little of anything ruins a good thing.  Too much riches can cloud our ability to seek Him first in our lives and can lead to relying on ourselves; and conversely, too little of what is necessary can lead to activities that do not honor God, i.e. criminal enterprise.

Brothers and Sister Girls, at the heart of this prayer is a call to trust in the Lord for each day.  Trusting in Him is the key to our Godly contentment!   Agur acknowledged this when he said:  “Every Word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him”.  (Proverbs 30: 5, NIV)   In His loving kindness God has promised to “supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19, NIV); remember that His riches are as vast as the universe!

Take courage my Brothers and Sisters in Christ!  Let the beauty of Agur’s humble prayer ignite our hearts to focus on the necessary things of God and encourage us to be content before the Lord, secure in the knowledge that He is our covering and our shield!

 

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