The wise man must not boast in his wisdom;
the strong man must not boast in his strength;
(Power, influence, physical beauty, and independence)
the wealthy man must not boast in his wealth.
(Comfort, security, safety, fame, shopping sprees, traveling itineraries, possessions, and bank account)
But the one who boasts should boast in this,
that he understands and knows Me —
that
I am Yahweh,
showing faithful love,
justice,
and righteousness on the earth,
for I delight in these things.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
(Jeremiah 9:23-24 HCSB)
When I think of wisdom and how many of us desire it I think of: Intelligence, academic achievement, knowledge of things, and even the wise choices we make in life such as ....um well, dang I don't really make many wise choices but I know a lot of people who do so let me think of one of their ways...okay, so for example I have a good friend who researches all the different prices for a particular item, like a car, and will spend weeks finding the best price because at the end she can choose the lowest price for the same good quality and save a lot of money (albeit not a lot of time). This is wise indeed, but who gives us money? God. Who gives us time? God. Who gives us the ability to research and go about our daily and weekly tasks? God. So in the end wisdom is a good thing, but it is not OUR thing. It's a gift, and boasting in a gift is as silly as the child who asks their parents for money to get them a gift and then feels proud that they got their parents a gift with their parent's money!
All of this "wisdom" appears to be so good by our immediate perspective because they are good things, but they are not personally ours to give us the right to boast in them. They are predestined things that are from God, gifts and helps given to us to enjoy being from Him. When we start to boast in them, or think that these gifts are what we got ourselves, we lose the connection of intimacy with God that the gifts were meant to provide.
For instance, on my birthday I get gifts from all my good friends (because real friends give gifts! Take your lead from God who is the exemplary friend of friends!). When I get a gift from a really close friend it means so much to me. The gift becomes a reminder of that friend to me. I got a wallet from a friend about 5 years ago that I still hold on to because it reminds me of how loved I am by this particular friend, and how much I love this friend. The gift connects me back to her in small ways but in ways that actually bring more significance to an otherwise worthless gift. By worthless I mean, if I bought it myself I would probably have thrown it away by now....most likely. I'm not saying that every gift I get I like, some gifts from good friends I actually never use because I don't particular like the gift in and of itself, but the presence of it upon receiving it is meaningful and produces a connection between me and the friend. That connection is what the gift's purpose is for. Usually the better we KNOW our friend the more likely we can get them a gift they will like, and in that sense gifts are more helpful indicators for who we really know and who we don't.
In the same way, God who knows us inside and out will give us gifts such as these all day long. He knows us more than we know ourselves because He made us, and by knowing Him more we grow to know ourselves more, merely because He tells us--like an engineer explains a machinery to its users. We posses our individual lives and identities, but we don't always know what they do or how they will best function because we did not make them.
The same goes for the other things that we should not boast about: strength and wealth. All of these are good things, but they are for the purpose of intimacy with God. If having them become a means for boasting (usually revealed by our complaint, anger or sadness at losing or not having them) then they are the opposition of connection to God. These good gifts become idols that we worship. Comfort, security, fame, independence, houses, money, physical youthful beauty, sexyness, influential speaking ability, and so forth. They become the very things that separate us from God, when we find ourselves so proud of ourselves for having them or so bent on getting them in order to feel proud or valued.
Some have these good things while others do not, and the what God is saying in this passage is that all such things as wisdom, strength and wealth are gifts from God to enjoy not to possess. In other words, the gifts can be taken away and that too would be a gift from God, because if what we are given is received as something from God and keeps our hearts growing deeper in love with Him, then they are useless themselves. All that we want is to love God more.
But when pain happens or trials and bad circumstance appear in our lives we always first instinctively think something is wrong. Something IS WRONG, but it's not because you don't have a gift, it's because you don't have intimacy with God. Maybe your heart suddenly idolized the useless gift of comfort or beauty. Maybe your heart started becoming too proud in this temporary life itself that sickness was the gift of helping you snap back to reality. Or maybe pain is happening because you made a bad choice and God is helping you learn the mistake, but keeping you grounded in His eternal love for you. Maybe you need to be reminded of eternity. Maybe you need to be reminded of who God is and what He wants from you: your intimacy with Him.
God is watching all of this and in His love for us will not stop pursuing our hearts to turn back to Him. God is not commanding us to obey Him because He is God, all will obey Him BECAUSE HE IS GOD NO MATTER WHAT IN THE END, so why does He pursue and discipline us through trials and pain? Because He loves us too much to see us choose death and useless idols. Every good gift is an opportunity for us to be intimate with God. Every trial and pain is an opportunity for us to be intimate with God. EVERYTHING and every day is an opportunity for us to be intimate with Him.
"But the one who boasts should boast in this,
that he understands and knows Me —
that I am Yahweh,
showing faithful love,
justice,
and righteousness on the earth,
for I delight in these things.
This is the Lord’s declaration."
All God wants is for you and me to know and understand who God is. I mean isn't that what we all want from our closest friends? We want our friends to understand and know us, that's why we tell them things, and listen to their things. It's why we fear rejection because we all so deeply want to be loved. That desire is from the engineer of our very beings. The great Creator made us to be creatures who would find our existence to mean being in love with Him and He with us. All other uses for our existence are broken parts caused by sin, but thanks be to Jesus who took care of our sins.
As we live our remaining lives in the world of sinfulness, God is healing us, fixing us, transforming us, all as a means, once again, to bring us into intimacy with Him. If we were all just perfect in a miraculous "Zap!" then we would hardly say much to God at all, we wouldn't know Him very well. But it is by our experiences that He draws us to Himself, and in this we are to boast. That we know God.
It is in the process of relationships that we begin to know, understand and grow intimately closer with someone. It starts out with an initial coffee or lunch together. Maybe some texts and phone calls. Maybe emails. A bundle of awkward times together, silent moments patiently swallowed, and the consistent pursuit after the other are all part of what makes knowing someone happen. But the painful moments validate the joyful ones so explicitly. Meaning, if you have a million awkward moments with someone as you get to know them, eventually you'll know what that person is like and it will close the space of unknown attributes about that person, resulting in logically less awkward moments. But how will you transform awkward into intimate without first accepting the awkward?
God desires for us to be intimate with Him. He does not desire for us to be rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, comfortable or suffering. All of those things He gives or doesn't give for the purpose of seeing us walk in our highest value: to be loved by Him.
What is God doing for you now to call you to Himself?
Does your heart have an ember or a flame in knowing and understanding God? Do you love His gifts because they remind you of how much He loves you or do you blame Him for when they are taken away because you distrust His faithful love for you?
God is always showing faithful love, justice and righteousness on the earth because He created the universe. He runs it. He lets this or that happen under His Sovereignty as a good and faithfully loving and just God. Does that sound like it makes sense? If not then perhaps God is wanting to show this to you somehow in your life through a gift that may not first look like a good gift. But every good gift is from the Lord, and this means that all God does is good for us. Search and seek to understand and know Him and you will find the truth of His words.
"But the one who boasts should boast in this,
that he understands and knows Me —
that
I am Yahweh,
showing faithful love,
justice,
and righteousness on the earth"
You and I have it all.
So why do we feel like we don't sometimes?
I ask God that, and He reminds me daily about the process of intimacy. A zap just wouldn't make me understand. The joy of real sacred true love is produced from a long history of experiences that lead to understanding.
Father,
Help me see what Your doing in my life right now to bring me to intimacy with you. Help me to seek you and find you. Help me to know Your felt presence as well as your presence in faith. Forgive me for constantly fixing my heart on the seemingly good gifts You give me as if they were achieved by me, and make me see the meaning of every gift as a call to Your Infinite love. When the boring or dull moments hit, rest my soul and spirit with reflective and attentive eyes on You, teaching me to listen and hear You. When the angst or anxiety in me begins to pressurize embrace me tightly so that the tears fall as the storm passes over and reveals the idols for their worthlessness. Help me to love like You love me so faithfully. Help me to walk in my gifts as evidence of Your love rather than evidence of my value. When trials hit help me find You. Father, don't take Your presence away from me, but speak and be with me and let my senses or spirit be aware of You every second. I want to be near You and hearing You, but my love for Your gifts often dissuade me from Your love. I want to be able to receive Your good gifts as they come, whether they are joyful gifts or painful gifts, may my heart always know they are vessels of intimacy with You.
In Jesus name I pray,
Amen.
Jmegrey
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