Wednesday 7 Aug 2013

Wednesday Reading: Proverbs 30:7-9

Key Verse: Proverbs 30:8
8  Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:

Devotion:
Agur prayed this prayer with faith knowing that he was making a request to a God that was listening and would answer. Just as we are taught to pray in the style of the Lord’s Prayer, Agur was picking the words carefully and with deep meaning. We are taught to ask for strength to not be tempted by temptations so that we can live a life closer to God’s will – that same thought is shown here in this prayer.

We should be able to ask God to give us strength to face up to temptation such that we will not be tempted to give in to them. To this extent Agur was asking God to remove him from the temptations that come with being very rich or very poor. If we were very rich we may well be tempted to do things that are not becoming of us or that we do not require. On the other hand being very poor may well tempt us into doing something dishonest that we would not otherwise get involved with.

He also asks to not be tempted into being vain or to telling lies, both very dangerous to our souls because they are the root of many a temptation that we will be faced with. We should be content with what we require rather than wanting what we do not need or being in want of things because we do not have. The Lord is the only one who does know exactly what we require rather than what we desire or think we need and if we are going to want for anything more or less we are falling short of God’s plan for us.

The food that he asks for here is not the physical food that we eat to stay alive but much more than that, being the spiritual food that we require to walk our walk with God. We need more than physical food because all that physical food can support is physical life, but spiritual food will give us strength we need to face up to the adversities we will face in our walk with God. God is omnipotent and omniscient, if we think of Him as anything less, then we are holding his name and position in vain.

Points to Ponder:
What do you give in to?

Will you ask God for strength to overcome that?