Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies; for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. Proverbs 23:4-7
Dear heavenly Father, this has been a crazy and stressful season in our economy. Some of us who thought we’d be retired in a couple of years are now thinking it’s ten, if at all. Some of us have lost jobs, even homes. Some of us are selling stuff; having stuff repossessed; having to move; some of our marriages are being stressed to the point of ending; and some of us are being tempted to steal for the first time. Others of us are holding tighter to our stuff than ever and are exerting great energy just to get more. Lord, we need wisdom for ourselves and for our friends.
Father, though the issues vary and we dare not generalize, bring the perspective of the gospel to bear as we think about our relationship to “stuff”. Where have we been presumptuous? Where have we assumed the right to excess? Why did we think only first century disciples of Jesus would ever actually have to pray for daily bread? Where have we gotten use to a lifestyle of having so much stuff to the point that we actually call abundance “need”?
In our “iWorld” of new gadgets and cool widgets, help us to ponder the reality that over half of the population on the earth exists on 3 of our American dollars, or less, a day. Father, rather than setting our gaze on riches, help us only to glance at them. Give us restraint, Lord Jesus. Holy Spirit, if we would wear ourselves out for anything, let it be to become rich towards God—to have the gospel so penetrate our hearts that we cry out with spontaneous joy, “who do I have in heaven but you, O Lord, and being with you I desire nothing on the earth… YOU are my portion, sovereign Lord.”
And Father, if we’ve become the stingy man or woman who is always thinking about the cost, forgive us and free us… forgive me and free me. Let our hearts be so smitten with you, Jesus, that we’re primarily thinking about how to be grace-meisters in generosity, not curmudgeons in hoarding.
Lord Jesus, you who were outrageously rich in all things became incomprehensibly poor for us, so that we, who were desperately poor in sin might be made immeasurably rich in grace. So very Amen, I pray, in your most enriching and liberating name.
