Episode 618

TODAY’S READING

13 To answer before listening— that is folly and shame.

Proverbs 18:13 

Proverbs is the Book of Wisdom. It is the book that gives us all of our little golden nuggets and rules to live by the wisdom that we know comes from God. Now, this verse here to answer before listening to that is folly and shame, something that maybe a lot of us are guilty for. That’s something that I’m guilty for. I assume the end of the story before I listen to the context, and the problem is that we cannot provide solutions without listening to every piece of the context. So in the same sense, just like we cannot assume an ending, we also cannot assume our ending. We cannot just open a door without consulting God and listening to him and what he has to say about a certain situation. So my practice is to bring everything to Him through prayer. It is something that Manny and I practice day in and day out. We pray over the day ahead of us, and we pray over the things we are going through. We pray for what we need help in; we pray for what we need strength for; we pray for what we need clarity on and everything and every new opportunity that comes our way. We stop, and we pause, we reflect, and we pray to hear from God. 

That wasn’t something that we always did. If you have been with me for some time now. You’d remember that over a year ago, I opened a bakery, and I did that for a couple of months. And it was a tough season. It was hard on me. It was hard on my family. It was hard on us financially, but I was following my dreams. But if I took that to prayer, it probably wasn’t the right thing to do in that season of my life. But I was the kind of person that just wanted to grab anything that I wanted and just run with it full force. And the issue with that is that when we take life by our means or by whom, we want to do life with complete disregard for the plans that God has for us. We don’t even ask him for advice, wisdom in the situation, clarity, or to pray to say God is this what you want us to do? So take my testimony as an example that we are to listen before we answer, and in the same way, we are to pray before we open a door. And so whatever you’re facing today, bring it to God and ask him for the strength, clarity, or wisdom to face whatever you’re facing.

Prayer:

Father God, we thank You, Lord, for a beautiful one; say we thank you that we get to come to you with all of our questions, all of our opportunities, all of our dreams, Lord, everything that we want. We can bring to you everything that we think we need. We bring to you, and Lord, you make it right for us. You tell us what we really can and cannot do or what is right and what is wrong for us, Lord, so we thank you for that wisdom. We thank you for the strength that you point us in the right direction, and we thank you that you ultimately only want what’s best for us. We pray this all in your son’s mighty name today and every day. Amen