Insights

Proverbs 3:2,4,8,16,17,26,29,31,35 says "The benefit of wisdom is better than gold."

Inherent within the human heart is a longing for peace, love, and joy. Among Christians and non-Christians alike, the desire is the same. Yet peace, love, and joy do not answer just any beck and call. They will come only by certain means; they are fruits on the tree of wisdom. Wisdom will bring length of days (v. 2), peace (v. 2), favor with God and man (v. 4), strength to your bones (v. 8), honor (v. 16), pleasantness (v. 17), paths of peace (v. 17), confidence in life (v. 26), and freedom from the snares of life (v. 26). Foolishness brings harm (v. 29), oppression (v. 31), and shame (v. 35). We all long for the benefits of wisdom. We must remember that she comes with a price: submission to the will of God and the truth of Scripture.

PRAYER

As you consider the benefits of wisdom, praise the Lord that we may share in His character:

Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods?
Who is like You, glorious in holiness (Exodus 15:11).

You are great, O Lord God. For there is none like You,
nor is there any God besides You, according to all that
we have heard with our ears (2 Samuel 7:22).

Plans Interrupted

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Isaiah 55:8-9, NIV

Have you ever had your plans interrupted? This can either make you cranky or make you grateful. In my case, it's usually both. Cranky at first. And then eventually grateful after days, weeks, months or even years later when I finally see that God's plans were so much better than mine.

Sometimes in my life, I haven't been so quick to be grateful when God has interrupted my plans. At the time, my plans seemed right and logical. But they were plans that, had they gone through, would have just been awful. In hindsight, I see how the Lord has saved me from myself time and time again and how he truly knows what is best for my life.

Before he was one of the greatest apostles in the Bible, Paul also had his plans interrupted. Now his plans would arguably have had more disastrous consequences than mine, but he believed he was doing the right thing and was set on seeing them through. That is, until God interrupted.

In Acts 9, Paul was still known as Saul. He was an enemy of believers ("the Way") and was focused on persecuting anyone who called himself a Christian. He had heard that many had fled to Damascus, so he secured letters of arrest from the high priest and headed off in pursuit of them.

But on the road, God intervened and interrupted Saul's plans. The conversion was radical and news-making. Saul was blind for three days, and then his sight was restored through Anaias, who God told that Saul was his "chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel (Acts 9:15)."

When the scales fell from Saul's eyes, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Later, he became known as the apostle Paul and was perhaps the greatest of all Christian missionaries. He also wrote 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament!

Can you imagine what type of effect his conversion must have had on the believers he had been seeking to persecute? Or how about the Gentiles to whom he ministered for years afterward? And then who knows how many countless readers of the Word from yesterday up until today-how about you and me? - have been blessed by Paul's testimony and his inspired writings?

These are God's amazing plans at work, my friend. And thankfully, oh so thankfully, he interrupts ours.

Intersecting Faith & Life: How did you respond the last time God interrupted your plans? Have you thanked him for saving you from your plans? Or how about from the plans you don't even know about-the ones of those who have meant you harm that God has interrupted? We will never know this side of heaven all that God has done and is doing in our lives. Let's thank him for his perfect plans for us!