Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, October 30, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
God isn’t a wish-granting fairy. So many people give up on prayer and on God because God fails to deliver the list of things we want when we ask for them. I’ve been taught in more recent years that the single most appropriate prayer to God is that God would help me align my own will to what God wants from and for me, and give me the power to carry out whatever call God has for me.
This is the sort of prayer Solomon prays. Not for material things, but for this same kind of thing: wisdom, discernment, the ability to recognize God’s call and carry it out to the best of his ability. And God is thrilled to hear it, because even in delivering such a prayer, Solomon has show he already has the beginnings of that very wisdom. They will walk together, God and Solomon, and the king’s wisdom will grow through their interrelationship. The same can happen for us. How cool is that?
What qualities can I pray for God’s help in developing in and with me?