Monthly Archives: December 2012

Wednesday Wisdom – Proverbs 20:5 Plumbing the Depths of the Heart

Leave a reply

Proverbs 20:5 “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.”

It had been a hard few years of marriage. John and his wife hadn’t had a peaceful week as long as they could remember. Each day brought new struggles. Their intimacy was marked by frustration. Their conversations were always volatile.

As Philip drove the car and listened to John speak in general terms about the frustration he felt, Philip finally said “I bet that’s really hard man. Does it make you doubt that God loves you when that happens?” John paused for a moment and said, “I think so.” Philip proceeded to ask questions and for the first time in a long time, John opened up and began to speak and weep deeply. It was as if Philip had uncovered a spring in John’s heart that had been long sealed up.

Our hearts are deep chambers. God made us that way. We were created to love and hope deeply. Sin has, however, wounded us. Our hearts tend to become calloused and deadened over time. We try not to feel as much because it hurts. We’re honest less because we’re not sure anyone really cares how we feel any way. So we hide it all away in the depths of our hearts. Very often we don’t even know what’s stored away in there.

Our proverb instructs us of the importance of being around people of understanding. We need people who are filled with God’s Spirit who are able to draw out from us the deep waters of our soul. At the same time, it seems right that we ought strive to be these kind of people. We should pray that God will fill our churches with people who love one another enough to draw out the depths of one another’s hearts.

We need to have and be people who will draw out sin from the heart. We are liars by nature who hate for our sin to be exposed. We must not allow surface convos to suffice. Have people around you who ask hard and probing questions. Allow them to walk around in your soul and open up the draws of your heart. At the same time, seek to be the kind of person who loves others enough to dig into their hearts. Of course you need their permission, but ask deep questions and leave no sin buried away.

We also need to have and be people who draw out fears from the heart. Fear is the kryptonite to faith. To grow in devotion to Christ, we must have people who help expose the areas of fear in our lives. We need help getting behind our protective shells of hypocrisy and to honestly deal with what keeps us from trusting God. We should at the same time ask God to help us serve others in this way. Ask Him to give you wisdom, insight and understanding into the lives of others.

Our hearts are deceitfully wicked above all things (Jer. 17:7), so there is no telling what things might come up when we begin to plumb the depths of our hearts and the hearts of others. We should however love one another enough to pray for God to use us in each other’s lives to draw out what is in our hearts. And as we do this, we do it with great hope because we know that no matter what sins or fears are exposed, the love and the grace of God can cleanse them all and replace them with the promised fountain of Christ, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 14:4)

May we have in our lives people of understanding and may God make us those kind of people as well.

Wednesday Wisdom – Stop Your Dream’n Start Your Do’n – Proverbs 13:4

Leave a reply

Wisdom Wednesday – Stop Your Dream’n Start Your Do’n

 Proverbs 13:4 “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.”

Each year there’s a top draft pick in the NFL who “has all the talent in the world, but lacks commitment to put in the work.” Because of this, they underachieve and end up failing to stick in the league. They came in with great dreams of hoisting championship trophies and having their bust placed in the Hall of Fame. But those dreams will not come to pass – not necessarily because they weren’t good enough, but because they had a flaw that cripples even the most gifted of athletes. They are what the Bible calls “sluggards.”

A “sluggard” is someone who isn’t willing to put hard work and extra hours into the task laid before them. The sluggard has a dream but he lacks planning, initiation, persevering and the discipline to act upon his desires. You can desire a high school diploma, but if you won’t go to class, won’t crack a book, won’t study – then you won’t graduate. Achievement requires effort.

A “diligent” person is someone who is willing to put in the effort. They come early, stay late and work hard while they’re there. They make goals, make plans and carry them out. They are willing to endure setbacks and overcome opposition. They believe that the desire they have is worth the blood, sweat, and tears it requires to achieve it.

The difference between the sluggard and the diligent is not the desire. Both people have a desire. The difference is acting on that desire. As a friend once told me, “all men have great ideas in the shower, but the great men are the ones who get out of the shower and act on them.”

This difference between the sluggard and the diligent is seen in every area of life, including our walks with the Lord. Being used of the Lord is something that begins with grace, is carried through by grace, and will be completed by grace. This is true. But the fact that God supplies abundant grace doesn’t mean that we lack responsibility to engage and be diligent in the work He has called us to do.

As an old pastor friends used to say, we must not “lean on a shovel and pray for a hole.” God has given us tasks to do. He gives us desires to do it. He gives us energy and strength to carry it out.  But for us to be lazy and expect things to “just happen” is the mark of a fool.

Certainly God helps those who can’t help themselves. This is the heart of grace. This proverb isn’t talking about earning our way to heaven or working in our own strength. This is drawing our attention to the fact that we need to “discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7) and engage boldly trusting that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

The sluggard craves the fruit of diligence without the diligence that gains it. Having a heart that is lazy toward the Lord and the great task He has laid before us is eternally more concerning than an athlete who won’t do extra wind sprints. As Charles Bridges said, “the halting step will not bring us to God. To expect the blessing without diligence is delusion.”

Are you diligent in seeking God? Do you desire to be near to Him and be used greatly by Him? Those are good desires, but desire without diligence is not promising. The diligent are richly supplied, not the sluggard. We must read. We must study. We must pray. We must engage with other people about spiritual realities.

Here’s an insightful quote from D.A. Carson on this subject, “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

May we be a people who are marked by grace and diligence. May the Lord richly supply us with more of Him and more opportunities to make His Name known.