Reliance on The Father
Do you want wisdom? If so, there is a path to get it, but it’s not what you think. Wisdom is the deliberate pursuit of something whose origin is God; it is manifold and multifaceted. Bridges wrote, “The fear of the Lord is that affectionate reverence by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to his Father’s law.” It doesn’t often look this way in our lives, but that’s what it means to understand reliance on the Father.
Dr. Bruce Waltke says, “In a world bombarded by inane cliches, trivial catchwords, Godless sound bites, the expression of true wisdom is in short supply today. The church stands alone as the receptacle and repository of the inspired traditions that carry a mandate for holy life from the ancient sages. The greatest of whom was Solomon, and from the greater than Solomon, Jesus Christ.” Dr. Waltke is telling us that the church of Jesus Christ is the one entity on the planet with the literature to teach how to be a godly man or woman. That is one of the privileges of being a part of a local church.
The Father’s Teaching
Beginning in Proverbs 3:1, we see the father’s wisdom and the warning to his son. Soloman’s teaching is the word Torah. The first five books of your Bible, also known as the Pentateuch, was the Law of God. The point was to keep God’s word in front of you.
Wisdom hasn’t changed. Wisdom is available, and we must keep it in front of us. Solomon says, ‘My son, don’t forget the Torah. Don’t forget the mitzvah.’ Where he says, ‘Keep my commandments,’ is more of a directive, not a comment. Solomon uses the first-person pronoun. He doesn’t say God’s teaching in God’s wisdom, instruction, or commandment because he’s the repository of God’s commandments and wisdom.
Through reliance on the Father, he’s doing what God told him. That’s why the instruction, especially for the Jews, was to teach the sons because they were to lead their families. The command to not forget is not casual here; it is willful neglect. It requires vigilance to keep this command. We need to be reminded. We need structure, form, and a framework to understand how to pray. The benefits of not forgetting this teaching are the length of days, years of life, and living in peace.
What Is The Goal Of Wisdom Literature?
Is the goal of Job happily ever after? Do you think Job’s resolution in the last part of that chapter took all the pain of what he went through away? Is it proverbial in the sense that, generally, this works? While that is an appealing conclusion, it is wrong.
Jesus Christ had a very short life. He was vilified and hated from the moment He was born. All his life, people either wanted to worship Him or kill Him. Finally, at 33 years of age, He was crucified happily. This does not appear to be a ‘happily ever after’ outcome from the human perspective. However, if we zoom out, we see that Jesus sacrificed for our sins. He sought to provide a way to obey His Father perfectly in every way, shape, or form. For Him to go to the cross for you and me is a happily ever after story.
In Proverbs 3:3-4, he introduces kindness and truth. Kindness here is the word ‘hesed,’ God’s loving-kindness. He loves to be loyal to His covenant people and His covenant promises. God’s hesed is what carries us into the New Testament grace. Truth is the Hebrew word for Emmet. The text tells us to bind these things around our necks, securing these to our most prominent life.
Solomon says I want you to use kindness and truth as you lead. Covenant language is being sewn into this simple phrase. It goes back to the way you live this life. You must lead in such a way you’re confident to protect yourself and project forward what you believe.
The Father’s Teaching About Trust
In Proverbs 3:5-7, the father teaches now about trust. The idea was you need to unequivocally trust God, period. The father’s teachings are not just his experience and house rules; they’re God’s. This is where the proverb becomes simple. Don’t lean on your ideas or justify your behavior.
There has to be something true, and that’s God’s word. No matter what your experience tells you. Do you trust Christ? Do you trust in the Lord with all your heart? You can’t lean on your ways. It’s like relying on a broken crutch. It won’t be long before it fails and you fall over. You must have true reliance on the Father.
As we look at the scripture, we come back to the fact that a naive and simple person must want to change. God made man in His image so we could worship Him. Unfortunately, man has been making God in our image instead. We’re in trouble if we rely on our designs rather than the Designer. The only way to change our hardwiring is for somebody else to intervene.
In Proverbs 3:6, the father clarifies that we must exclusively have reliance on the Father. Proverbs 3:7 makes it clear that we are not to lean on our understanding or be wise in our own eyes. We see this illustrated again in Proverbs 12:15. The fool is right in his own eyes. I can be right in my own eyes, but a wise man listens.
We all had classes in school that we believed were pointless. And then you understand this thing called academic rigor. Learning things that are hard helps you learn other things. You may not ever use certain information, but you’re learning a discipline of how to study and think critically. How much more is this vital in the wisdom and pain we experience?
Do you rely on God, not yourself?
This requires that we trust Christ. It requires that our human relationships, scheming, and resources will not always fix it. I, too, have to ask myself, ‘Michael, are you relying on God?’ We’re sophisticated and believe that if we do good things, make enough money, and raise our children right; then we’re good people.
You step back on wisdom literature and look at the future. When you and I cross the threshold from this life to eternal life, the earth’s things will evaporate. The first thing you’ll do after you fall on the ground after seeing Jesus and He picks you up a few thousand times is say, ‘What was I thinking? Why was I worried?’
Do you rely on God with all your heart and in all your ways?
Charles Fritz wrote, “This beautiful expression calls for absolute obedience and surrender in every realm of life.” Somewhere we got the idea that God will ultimately save us, but we have to worry about all the in-between. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be good stewards who have wisdom and use common sense. But, when we exhaust all our resources and still can’t fix them, we must have full reliance on the Father.
He paid for your sins and died in your place on your behalf. You are guaranteed eternal life because of what He’s done, not what you do. So if we trust Him for our salvation, why don’t we trust Him for today?
Do you fear the Lord and flee evil?
This is the point made in Proverbs 3: 7-8. Our wisdom is foolishness to God. Part of the outworking is fearing God and running away from evil. Ross writes, “The healing that the fear of the Lord and avoidance of evil bring is first and foremost spiritual.”
Your time in God’s word, prayer, under God’s spirit, and around God’s community is a corollary to how you handle life’s problems. A person that’s grounded gets their nose in the scripture and learns to pray in a way aligned with the scripture that’s more meaningful, with the truth behind it, not just meaningless repetition.