DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5 | DAY 6| DAY 7 | DAY 8 | DAY 9| DAY 10
Who’s Calling the Shots? (Proverbs 10:22)
Have you ever encountered one of those kids that relentlessly asks “Why”? My mother tells me that I was that child. She tells me that I was so excessive in my desire for understanding “WHY” that she eventually had to just make up answers so I’d stop asking questions.
One of the “WHY” questions I find myself trying to communicate to people is why it’s better to allow God to call the shots. After all, our theme verse for this year is about exactly that — allowing God to call the shots. “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9). The answer to why we should pursue God’s will and plans over our own lies in another Proverb “The blessing of the Lord makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it”. (Proverb 10:22)
The Bible Knowledge Commentary says “After the word “LORD” the Hebrew adds the word “it” for emphasis. So the first line reads, The blessing of the LORD, it brings wealth”. The second line of this 1 proverb completes the picture, “He adds no sorrow with it.” The implication is that anything we count as a “blessing” if it is not of God will carry some sort of sorrow with it. In other words, blessings we receive as a part of our own efforts are tainted; they are not pure. They have some sort of side effect.
This is exactly what Solomon talks about in Ecclesiastes 2:11. Solomon writes, “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” Whether or not we realize it there is an emptiness and futility to getting our own way. This
makes sense because nothing is able to satisfy the desires of our flesh.
They will always leave us desiring more. I was preparing for another lesson and I read that a study was conducted and people were asked how much money they felt they needed to be content. On average people desired double what they earned. If you made twenty five grand a year you desired fifty. Fifty you desired one hundred… There is no satisfying for our fleshly. Solomon in this same passage of Ecclesiastes talks about the vanity of all he possessed and how he kept his heart from nothing yet it did not satisfy. Then he closes chapter 2 with this in verses 24 and 25, “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?”
Solomon had the ability to possess and do whatever he desired. Yet he tells us that satisfaction and fulfillment can only be found in God. When we hear “The blessings of the Lord makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it” it should serve as an encouragement that what we have received from God is actually the best thing we could receive. That we have no need for anything else nor should we seek to supplement his provision because in doing so we will be bringing unnecessary sorrow into our lives.
– Adam Deering
Download the pdf for each lesson
DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5 | DAY 6 | DAY 7 | DAY 8 | DAY 9 | DAY 10