Fearing God Most of All - Proverbs 1

Our society is consumed by healthy living.  Organic food.  Power vegetables. Yoga. Cardio. CrossFit. Pilates. Limited sugar (dagger to my heart). Limited soft drinks (full body blow). In some form, I am sure every reader of these words can attest to the truth that at least one of these things has an enormous impact on your purchasing decisions, your allocation of time, your conversations. There is a part of you that BELIEVES that more exercise will strengthen your body, that certain foods will make you healthy.  In fact, your belief is so strong, so down-to-your-core real, that there is a FEAR of departing from it.  You believe in food so strongly, in healthy living so fully that there is a fear that if you do not eat these foods, or do this exercise that your health may suffer, your body may not be quite-so-sleek.  The belief is good, but it is the FEAR of not having it that compels your behavior. I think when the Proverbs talk about “fear of God,” this is where they are coming from. We should never be afraid of God, just like we should not be afraid of kale.  Kale is good for you.  God is good, and He is good for you.  In fact, He is awesome.  He is all-powerful and full joy and total peace.  In fact, it is because He is so good, and His plans are so perfect that we should fear NOT being close to Him.  We should fear being separate from Him.

Like Solomon, I have to get to this place where I see how small I am, and how big He is.  I don’t understand the bigness of this world, the enormousness of poverty and injustice.  I can’t fathom how to soothe the heartache of those suffering. I am just a selfish girl who tells white lies and wants to impress those around me – but STILL He has lavished upon me countless blessings.  Despite my smallness, God has been so good to me.  I have grown babies in my womb, I have experienced that heart connection of true friendship that goes too deep for words, I see oceans and smell roses. It is all God. And He is so big, so GOOD.  What would life be like without Him?  I don’t want to know.  So I cling to Him.  I am, in fact, FEARFUL of life without Him.

Solomon says in Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge.” He does not mean we fear the Lord and keep Him at arm’s length, it means we are so in awe of His power, so blown away by His love for this mucked up girl obsessed with how her tushy looks in spandex, so taken aback by the decoration of this earth, so mystified that He would leave Heaven to defeat death and sin in a battle that tops all battles, so excited to see what would happen if I would really TAKE HIM IN that I am FEARFUL of being apart, of turning away, of looking any other direction but His.

If we go back to the healthy living analogy, we, in our health-obsessed culture, look at lack of exercise and poor eating habits as a serious social issue. [Full disclosure: I love Cheetos and Mountain Dew; so this is not a judgement from me.] Frankly, knowing what we know about the body and health, we, as a culture, believe it is borderline stupid to eat primarily processed foods and to live a sedentary lifestyle.  We have great anxiety about lack of exercise.  The fitness of our flesh is of enormous importance.  We are fearful, no, I would say we are PETRIFIED of chemically tainted foods and muscles left un-toned.  And this is all for a body that has a shelf life anyway.  Newsflash: the fanny is going to sag.  It’s a thing called gravity. BUT, we are promised not only life after this life and rewards that last forever, but also a full and joyful life NOW, wisdom now, comfort now if we will abide by the teachings of our Heavenly Father, if we will live feeding on His word, if we seek this His wisdom wholeheartedly.

Like our culture is calling for a bold CHANGE in our lifestyle habits toward healthy living, this Manna, this word is crying out for a radical repentance, an ABOUT FACE on what is propelling us in our lives.  Our Heavenly Father via King Solomon is telling us to stop, turn around, fix our eyes, our goals, our desires on this GREAT, GOOD God.  Crave Him so much that you are afraid to be apart from Him.  And here is the caramel sauce on top… are you ready?  Drum roll, please.  When we turn, when we open our hands and our hearts and say, tell me what to do, tell me how to live, He says, it is done.

Proverbs 1:22-23, “Simpletons! How long will you wallow in ignorance?
 … Idiots! How long will you refuse to learn?
  About face! I can revise your life.
Look, I’m ready to pour out my spirit on you;
I’m ready to tell you all I know.” The Message

He is ready to tell you all that He knows.  That is Manna for a lifetime.  It is spiritual sustenance to last forever, literally, an eternity.  It is answers to every question.  It is peace for every persecution.  It is joy for every sorrow.  It is forgiveness for every sin.  It is total.  It is complete.  It is all that we need or will ever need.  It is all that we want or will ever want.

So, in hearing this truth that fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge and this cry to do an about face on what we are craving, what we are feeding on, I think we have to stop and ask ourselves:

• What do I fear living without more than God?  What do I cling to ‘to make my life work’ more than His presence?  Exercise? A particular diet?  A beautiful life? Material success? My appearance?  If I examine my thoughts, my checkbook, my calendar, what is compelling me more than being near God?
• How have I misunderstood God?  In light of what He offered Solomon and what He is offering us, how have I discounted what He longs to give me?  He says He wants to tell us all he knows.  Scripture tells us that He can give us more than we can possibly ask or imagine.  What have I placed as higher value than His words?
• What is one way that I can do an ABOUT FACE and turn to feed on God?  If a spiritual nutritionist could dissect my heart, what might she say to ‘cut out’?

Proverbs as Manna

If you are like me, your mind flips back to practicality. The LIST, the PLAN. How? What is the path that takes me from the wilderness of my life as a Christian-in-name but with the anxiety, worry, weariness of one lost -- to the life promised that includes peace that surpasses understanding, joy to the fullest, hope and rest? Give me the coordinates so I can put it in my GPS. I will meet you there at 9am, after my exercise class but before preschool pick-up. Yes, where to start… Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” All of God’s word is Manna. But you have to start somewhere, and one place to start is in the Proverbs. They are succinct words of wisdom that we can live by, that we can put into practice. So simple, like Manna, the Proverbs offer these little nuggets of truth – simple and powerful – and if we will pick them up, and take them in, and live by them, we will live fully.

Interesting story, the Proverbs. They were written by King Solomon, son of King David. In 1Kings 3:6-10, God speaks to Solomon in a dream and He says, “Ask what you wish me to give you.” That’s pretty cool. Open ended. I love it. And King Solomon first starts by thanking God for all He did for King David, and how He never left him, and how He always loved David. He goes on to say that it is only because God gave David a son that Solomon himself is now king. He comes from this place of great humility and he says, “Thou has made thy servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.”

Who hasn’t felt like that in the midst of raising a family, of being a friend, or managing our lives? I confess that I so often feel like I don’t know how to come out or come in! It is with this enormous humility that Solomon says, I don’t deserve where I am, I cannot do this well on my own, all I ask is for “an understanding heart to judge thy people to discern between good and evil. And it was pleasing in the sight of the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing.” So, God goes on to say that because Solomon didn’t ask for riches or long life but for understanding, “I have DONE according to your words. Behold I have given you a wise and discerning heart.”

So many things so cool about this. First, I love and adore and could pop over the fact that this is even faster than next day, overnight delivery. It was DONE. When we ask according to God’s will and from a place of humility, the answer is YES.

Second, Solomon did not have to go to God, GOD CAME TO HIM. Let’s all be very clear here. God has come to you. Jesus came and the Bible is your proof. Those words in there are true and real and sharper than any two-edged sword. They can change your life, shape your life. They can sustain your life. They are MANNA.

Third, Solomon did not have to put a plan together and then ask for blessing, Solomon went to God to get the plan. This is glorious news to the calendar-phobic. We can go to Him with a heap of people that we want to do right by and just ask, “Give me wisdom, give me understanding, because I can’t tell what is good and what is evil.” What mother does not cry out for this daily? Is there anything more valuable when raising your kids and making decisions for a family than understanding of what is good, what is wise?

But finally, and here is our point, Solomon was already eating the Manna when he asked. He was humble. He knew God had brought him to this point, he knew that God had made him king, he knew that God’s wisdom is more precious than wealth. He had already picked up the Manna that said ‘be humble and trust in the bigness of God’ - even as king. He had heard it, he had believed it, and he was living it. And that Manna blessed Solomon.

Listen to this: “Now God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of mind, like the sand that is on the seashore. And Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom on Egypt. For he was wiser than all men…and his fame was known in all the surrounding nations. He also spoke 3000 proverbs.” I Kings 3:29-32

These proverbs of Solomon were recorded and preserved and we have them today. They are Manna sprinkled on the ground for us to pick up and take in and live by. It starts with a prayer, “Father, I know that I cannot do this alone. I know that you have a better plan for me. I am so very prone to wanting to control everything and that makes me forget to trust you. I want to be wise in the way I live this life that You have given me. I want to live sustained by your Manna, your Love dropped from Heaven, your Wisdom that is neverending. Help me.”

It starts with the humility of knowing we don’t have it all figured out, and the hunch that God in fact does. And then we begin gathering the Manna ALREADY SPRINKLED DOWN UPON US and living by it.

For Monday Manna, September 22nd Read Proverbs 1 and 2. Take it slow, 5 -10 verses a day. Chew on them. Write out verses that tug your heart. Pray about how to live them out. Journal about them. Think about the simple truths detailed here – they are wisdom poured out to Solomon and then passed on to us.

Be careful that you don’t just check the Bible Study box, don’t just read them, don’t just gather the Manna and let it sit. Let’s try to eat it, to obey it. The Manna given from God in Exodus came with these words… “to test whether or not they will walk in my instruction.”

Proverbs 3: 1-2 “My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years
 and bring you peace and prosperity.

Feed well.

Why MANNA?

We are calling this little gathering Monday Manna. It came about out of a desire to feed on the word of God. To get our ‘fix’ so that we could get up and go live our life according to His word. What’s not to like, right? But as I have really contemplated MANNA, I see this goes much deeper than our just checking the Bible Study box because we can do that and still leave hungry, unfulfilled, unsatisfied. Interesting that hungry feeling. It isn’t new. When God first offered Manna to the Israelites in the wilderness, it was in response to their grumblings of hunger, their dissatisfaction with what they saw as the ‘outcome’ of their obedience in following Moses out of captivity in Egypt. There are several things here to which I can relate.

First, like these women 3500 years ago, I believe in God. It’s not like they were grumbling and complaining because they were pagan, and they didn’t know about God. No, these manna-receivers were God’s peeps. He loved them, watched over them and rescued them. These people believed in God, just like me. They were God’s people grumbling.

This brings me to the second similarity. I, too, am a grumbler and a complainer, even in the midst of my cushy life. The Israelites were basically saying that they had plenty of food when they were in Egypt, even though they were enslaved. Now they were in the wilderness and hungry and were wondering maybe this God thing wasn’t so cool. Like these grumbling, rescued Israelites, I can sit in my little-quiet-room place and read my Bible and still feel pretty blah, pretty empty, pretty hungry on that deep-heart-satisfaction level. I can often question whether this Christian path is really worth it.

Inner Monologue: I could be exercising a lot more and running so many errands if I didn’t make myself sit here every morning. There is cottage cheese forming on my thighs as I read my Bible, and I my to-do list is l-o-n-g. Is this path really better than Patty Perfect over there? She looks like she has it all. She is not at all burdened by controlling her tongue or raising Godly kids. She is just focused on being happy. Really, God – I sort of feel like I am in the wilderness over here.

A third similarity is that I can really get my panties in a wad when I don’t know EXACTLY HOW THIS WHOLE THING IS GOING TO PAN OUT. The first manna-receivers couldn’t see the Promised Land, they didn’t know exactly what was going to happen when. Moses just kept promising them that God was with them and that He would provide, protect, and sustain them. Nevertheless, the not-knowing kept them enslaved to “what might happen”, sent them off worshipping man-made things in their midst, even though God had just set them free.

Does this sound familiar? My kids can sign up for umpteen activities, I can decide between a dozen Bible Studies offered on any day of the week, our kids can choose between charter schools, enrichment schools, magnet schools, base schools. Such freedom! So many options! But what happens to God’s little mamas with all that freedom? We get all frantic and worrisome because we want to know EXACTLY how any option is going to pan out 5 years from now.

We worry about tomorrow (God says do not worry about tomorrow), we grumble about the schedules and the fullness of our lives (God says do not grumble), we complain about our emptiness (God says do not complain but to rest in Him). Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” I believe this, but I do not do this.

This brings me to the larger and more troubling similarity I have with these early manna-receivers. You see, I, too, have been delivered from slavery, but I am not rejoicing. I am not living wide open and free, with eyes expectant to see what glory lies ahead. The Israelites were delivered from brutal slavery, they were spared from widespread-crazy-insane plagues, they watched as the Red Sea miraculously parted. They had tangible, eyewitness accounts of God showing up, but they complained of hunger, of being lost, of not having a plan, a home. I have my Bible, which tells me stories like theirs, but also the story of Jesus. The story that says He loved me so much that He came down here to invite me to live in His presence forever – offering joy, wisdom, peace, rest, hope. In my life, I have proof of His provision again and again, but I can still feel like I am wandering along in the wilderness.

Do you ever feel like this? We know these promises in our heads, but we don’t feel them in our bones. We hear the stories, but we don’t live like they are true. And I think back to those women in the wilderness and I think how God gave them Manna every morning, enough for every day. And I wonder… how silly it would have been for them not to pick it up, to eat it, to be sustained by it.

So many of God’s promises come out of the condition of obedience. Exodus 16:4 “Then the Lord said to Moses, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they walk in My instruction.” It is not the condition of perfection, but of obedience. In order for the Manna to sustain, they had to pick it up daily and eat it. So, I wonder, as one grumbling in the wilderness, for me to get the manna blessing, the nourishment, the joy, the wisdom of God’s word -- how do I eat it? Reading it, knowing it isn’t always enough. To take it in, to have it change me – must I DO IT?

So, we have the opportunity to come out of the wilderness - to live sustained, loved, provided for, spoken to, rejoiced in, protected, blessed. Will we seize this opportunity to walk out of the wilderness and into the promises? Will we read His word, take it in, live according to it and be changed by it?