God, Teach Me!

Approximately 17 times in the book of Psalms, the writer asks God in so many words to teach him God's way (Psalm 27:11, 86:11; 119:12; 143:10). Now that is a prayer we would benefit all of us. Why? Paul Tripp, in his book,A Shelter in the Time of Storm: Meditations on God and Trouble, suggest there are two compelling reasons why this is a prayer we need to be praying.

First Tripp cites the depth of God's wisdom. In answer to the question, "Why would I pray over and over and over again to be taught by the Lord?" he writes, "Because his wisdom is just that deep and vast. His wisdom has no boundary. His wisdom has no bottom. His wisdom has no ceiling. If for ten million years I would sit for twenty-four hours a day at his feet and listen, I would scratch only the very surface of the wisdom that is his. If I gave every day of my life to study only the wisdom that is captured on the pages of Scripture, I could study until my very last day and not have mined all the treasures of wisdom that are there. So, once more, I pray to be taught because the wisdom of God is just that deep."  So bottom line, if you want God's wisdom, then open God's Word and PRAY! Ask God to teach you!

Secondly, Tripp references the danger of this world. Concerning this world in which we live he notes that it is a "a world where the sounds of falsehood echo more loudly and repeatedly than the sounds of wisdom. Living in human culture is like sitting in a twenty-thousand-seat arena just before the concert begins. Everyone is talking at once, a den of voices so loud and pervasive you can barely hear yourself think. Every day a thousand voices speak into my life and the vast majority of those voices have not gotten the flowers of their insight from the wisdom garden of the Lord. They tell me who I am. They tell me what life is about. They tell me how to invest my time. They tell me how to use my resources. They tell me how to conduct my relationships. They tell me what is true and untrue. They tell me what my goals should be. They tell me what the good life looks like. They tell me what I should be and do and want. They offer me a comprehensive system of wisdom that’s well thought through and attractive on many levels, but that competes with the true wisdom that can come only from God. It’s so easy to be taken captive. It’s so easy to have divine wisdom corrupted by human wisdom. It’s so easy to breathe in the polluted air of a culture that no longer actually thinks that God is, let alone that he is wise." So at the end of the day ... after you have listened to the world telling you how to live, ask yourself, "How much time did I spend today listening to God's voice telling me how I need to live?"

So let me encourage you to take this verse ... Psalm 25:5 and make it a daily prayer as you open up His Word: "Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long."

Thanks for stopping by . . .
pj