The One Year Wisdom for Women Devotional: 365 Devotions through the Proverbs (74 page)

October 7

First Things First

     
Prepare your outside work,

     
Make it fit for yourself in the field;

     
And afterward build your house.

The bottom line of this proverb is first things first. Necessities first, luxuries later. Good advice, especially for our generation. It seems that so many want it all, all at once and all of a sudden. Young people get the application for credit cards and start buying fun things before they even have a job. This leaves them in debt and always trying to catch up instead of getting ahead and saving.

Galileo once said, “I do not believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” Good advice!

This proverb is a good exhortation to get your own life and finances in order. Since we live in a society where instant gratification is king, seldom do we see people investing in being prepared spiritually, emotionally, or financially for marriage or ministry, starting their own business, or buying a house.

So if you feel that you have not been wise and your life is out of order, the first thing to do is to acknowledge it, and then ask the Lord to give you wisdom, guidance, and self-control. God is a God of order. If you ask him, he can help you reconstruct one step at a time.

D. L. Moody liked to say, “Work as if everything depended on you and pray as if everything depended on God.”

Make It Personal . . . Live It Out!

Personal responsibility, diligence, duty, steadfastness, and perseverance are great building blocks for life. Did you grow up in a home where you never saw these modeled? Join the club. But today, you get to choose. Small changes in important areas of life add up quickly. They build momentum. We become what we repeatedly do.

Let’s Pray

Lord, you see the areas where I need structure and order. Forgive me for being careless and foolish. Inspire and instruct me in making wise, responsible choices.

One Year Bible Reading

Jeremiah 8:8–9:26; Colossians 3:1-17; Psalm 78:32-55; Proverbs 24:27

October 8

Off with the Old

     
Don’t testify against your neighbors without cause;

          
don’t lie about them.

     
And don’t say, “Now I can pay them back for what they’ve done to me!

          
I’ll get even with them!”

In this proverb God himself is telling us two things he hates: lying and being spiteful. Both are mean. Both are destructive.

Lying—God hates it. “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor” is one of God’s top Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:16,
NIV
). That shows how important this is to him. It was God’s plan to have an entire nation live with this principle. Just imagine what life would be like even if just Christians, God’s people, decided to wholeheartedly obey this commandment. Just imagine.

Winston Churchill commented, “By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.”

The next issue is spitefulness, which simply means “full of spite.” Colossians 3:8-9 tells us to put off ugly, useless behavior as we would take off old, dirty clothes. “Now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.” Ladies, these attitudes and actions are ugly and out of style for a godly woman. Do you remember the Disney movie
Bambi
? Thumper’s father gave some good advice to his little rabbit son. He said, “If you can’t say something nice . . . don’t say nothing at all.”

Make It Personal . . . Live It Out!

When women come to Christ, they often realize there are clothes in their closets that have to go. They’re no longer the same person who put on that seductive top or those tight pants. Their desires are different, inside and out. My friend, let’s continue the process of putting off old ways of living and responding. We need a fresh wardrobe of new ways to replace them. Colossians 3:10, 14 takes us on a shopping trip that will produce the kind of “extreme makeover” that really matters. “Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. . . . Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.”

One Year Bible Reading

Jeremiah 10:1–11:23; Colossians 3:18–4:18; Psalm 78:56-72; Proverbs 24:28-29

October 9

Inch by Inch

     
I walked by the field of a lazy person,

          
the vineyard of one with no common sense.

     
I saw that it was overgrown with nettles.

          
It was covered with weeds,

          
and its walls were broken down.

     
Then, as I looked and thought about it,

          
I learned this lesson:

     
A little extra sleep, a little more slumber,

          
a little folding of the hands to rest—

     
then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit;

          
scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.

It’s interesting that in Solomon’s day, just like ours, it’s easy to spot a lazy man’s or woman’s house. It’s neglected. This has nothing to do with the age or price range of the house. I have seen tiny, older homes that are charming and inviting simply because it’s obvious someone who cares lives there.

So since our proverb describes the shabby result of neglect, let’s look at how we can be diligent. Diligence is merely careful, steady effort.

When I was a young wife I heard the principle “inch by inch, anything’s a cinch.” I was putting off many things like planting flowers, organizing closets, or touching up paint because as a busy mom, I did not have big blocks of time to work on projects. Then I learned I could set a small goal to do just one thing each day. I actually wrote out a schedule: Monday, clean out one kitchen drawer while calling a friend. Tuesday, do two loads of laundry. Wednesday, spend fifteen minutes pulling out weeds. One of the great joys of making a list is checking things off.

“Inch by inch, anything’s a cinch.”

Make It Personal . . . Live It Out!

Would you like to be more diligent? A schedule, a list, and bundling—multitasking—are good tools. Get out your calendar to map out your week. List three half-hour tasks, then look for three thirty-minute blocks of time that are available. Post a note on the fridge stating your three goals and when you’ll do them. As you do each task, purposely do something else like listening to a Bible study CD or praise music, or calling a friend to catch up. The time will fly by, you’ll get a lot done, and you’ll have fun in the process.

One Year Bible Reading

Jeremiah 12:1–14:10; 1 Thessalonians 1:1–2:8; Psalm 79:1-13; Proverbs 24:30-34

October 10

Hide and Seek

     
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;

          
to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

Solomon understood two things that seem to stand in conflict to each other.

1. In many ways God is mysterious. It’s been said that if God were so small we could completely understand him, he would be too small for us to worship him. So think about it. Do you really understand how gravity works, or why your eye can see, or how a tiny seed can grow into a tree? If we can’t grasp the mysteries of the creation, how much more so the Creator? Actually, it should thrill us that God has wisdom and understanding so vast and perfect we could explore it for all of eternity. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33,
NKJV
).

2. The fact is that even though we cannot understand everything, we need to seek to understand the things that we should understand. Kings and leaders and godly moms who take their responsibilities seriously never get tired of learning how they can grow in their ability to be and do their best. One of the first things that Solomon did when he became king was to ask God for wisdom. In 1 Kings 3:9 Solomon prayed, “Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” (
NIV
).

Ladies, we live in a complicated, confusing, and challenging world, but the same God to whom Solomon went to ask for wisdom is waiting and wanting to give it to you. “Ask and you shall receive” (Matthew 7:7, paraphrased).

Make It Personal . . . Live It Out!

What does it mean “to search out a matter”? For example, I have a friend who has recently retired. She attends church and reads her Bible, but she isn’t using her spiritual gifts to serve. I challenged her to “search out” God’s will for this next phase of her life. Here are the steps:

1. Ask God for direction before you ask anyone else.
   
2. Pay attention to the stirrings he puts in your heart.
   
3. Look for God to open doors and send confirmation.
   
4. Step out to do what he is leading you to do.
   

One Year Bible Reading

Jeremiah 14:11–16:15; 1 Thessalonians 2:9–3:13; Psalm 80:1-19; Proverbs 25:1-5