Proverbs 30:1-10
Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
Proverbs 30:4
Who has gathered the wind in his fists?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is his son’s name?
Surely you know!
This verse immediately transports me back to our tour through Job, to where God shows up and starts challenging Job, especially in Job 38:5a: Who determined [the earth’s] measurements—surely you know! So take a look back at what we said then. I’ll wait…
Two things I ask of you;
Proverbs 30:7-9
deny them not to me before I die:
Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the LORD?”
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.
I have long thought this to be an exceptionally wise prayer: give me neither poverty nor riches. It recognizes the danger of either extreme, of being either rich or poor. And it seeks to avoid the temptations associated with either end of that spectrum. We see these temptations play out around us — the rich who become arrogant in their wealth under the delusion that they are self-sufficient and have no need of God, and the poor losing faith and taking matters into their own hands. The Lord explicitly warns the Israelites against the “rich” temptation in Deuteronomy 8:11-17. Meanwhile, although we may sympathize with the poor, there are no exemptions for the poor in “Thou shalt not steal.” So, it is safest to have neither too much nor too little. Call it “The Goldilocks Prayer”, if you will, but it’s a good one!
Your second set of verses touched me also, John: …give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny You…or lest I be poor and steal (vv. 8-9, in part). Rather than food, for myself I substitute wealth or success. We work to accumulate wealth or to become successful in our careers and often think of how smart we are to have done so well. We don’t recognize what’s gone on behind the scenes, how the “smarts” that made us wealthy or successful were given to us by God – even that brilliant venture upon which we trod was likely the Holy Spirit’s “still small voice” within us. Looking back, I can see God’s hand at work in my personal and professional life – in both the successes and the failures. The successes were wonderful, but in my heart I also know that the failures were needed. …give me neither poverty nor riches…
Thanks, John, for the reminder to look back at Job. It makes one mindful of who God is, how great God is, and how very weak our ability to grasp that truth is.
And I will chime in to agree that verses 8-9 are a wise, temperate prayer we would do well to pray often.