Preceding Grace: #Perspective

Friday, April 4, 2025

Daily Devotion for Lent 2025, Day 27

Today's Reading: Job, Chapter Twenty-eight

Job seems to give a soliloquy on wisdom in the midst of all that is happening to him.

As we think about wisdom, it seems that one couldn't put a price on it. Verse 15 states:

"It cannot be gotten for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out as its price."

Certainly, our institutions of higher learning might beg to differ on this adage!

When Job states that "the price of wisdom is above pearls" in verse 18, it reminds me of the parable that Jesus told in Matthew 13:45-46:

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it."

Wisdom, like the kingdom of heaven, is something that one would give up everything to possess.

We finally get a hint of what Job considers wisdom in the last verse of the chapter where God states:

Sometimes we learn from our mistakes.
‘Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.’

As we see what Job has endured, one could say that a part of what this book is getting at is that wisdom can be gained in suffering. I'm certainly wiser for the difficulties I've had to endure. Hopefully, these things give us greater empathy for one another rather than greater cynicism.

The perspective of wisdom may be that we understand that bad times don't endure but that good times don't either. Both are ephemeral. We have to celebrate the good while we have them and help each other through the bad when they occur. Maybe in this we discover the kingdom of heaven.

I like the Black Crowes song called "Wiser Time" whose chorus states:

On a good day, I know it ain't every day

We can part the sea

And on a bad day, I know it ain't every day

Glory beyond our reach

Prayer for the day:

Gracious God, like Solomon before us, we would ask you for wisdom. But if this means that we must endure hardship to get it, we are not so sure. And so, when the darkness descends upon us for whatever reason, help us to gain perspective in its midst. And as we gather greater understanding, we would ask that this be tempered with greater compassion as well. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Photo by Jake Pierrelee on Unsplash

Monday, March 11, 2024

Daily Devotion for Lent 2024, Day 23

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!"

Matthew 6:22-23 (NRSVue)

In the ancient world, people believed that the eye, like a lamp, actually gave light to objects so that they may be seen. As we think about technology, the lamp was an advanced tool that was needed to bring light into the darkness which would have been much more prevalent at night.

As we think about lamps and light, one of the most famous verses comes from Psalm 119:105 which states, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."

From this perspective, God's word gives us the ability to truly see.

Jesus seems to be taking the ancient view of physiology and utilizing the metaphor of lamp, light and darkness to talk about our worldview.

If we have a healthy way of looking at things, we can see clearly. If we are looking at things from a selfish, greedy or territorial perspective, things probably look a lot darker. When our perspective starts poorly, it may be difficult to see at all!

Anything clouding your vision?

In Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, he talks about priming or the psychological characteristic of being influenced in our behavior by the words to which we've been exposed. In John Bargh's experiment, referenced in the book, subjects that were given a list of rude words were more likely to interrupt a conversation than those who were given patient words to review.

If this is even somewhat true, it should be important for Christians to ask themselves what kind of priming are we doing to start our day?

Are we allowing our eyes to see most clearly?

There are days when all of us feel that the darkness is closing in. How much of this is happening to us subconsciously from the kind of conversations we're having, the things we're watching and the content that we're reading?

And from a sense of bringing light to the world from earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, how are we influencing those around us in a positive direction?

Prayer for the day: Luminescent God, we find that the light we shine into the world is simply a reflection of the light you shine to us. As we look upon your word, may it allow us to see more clearly. And as we visualize again who you have created us to be, may this dispel any darkness creeping up on us. We pray this in the name of the Christ. Amen.

Photo by Jakob Lange via Flickr.com. Used under the Creative Commons license.