One of the wonderful aspects of this truth—that God has a plan for good which He has laid out for history–is that God is absolutely faithful: He plans and then unwaveringly, inexorably and powerfully keeps on course.  This is obvious in the dozens of prophecies given in the Old Testament which are carefully fulfilled in the New Testament hundreds or even thousands of years later. God promises and He brings it to pass, period.

The rebellion of Satan, of men, of me cannot derail His purposes. He has the infinite ability to weave our evil attempts at disruption into the overall outcome of good that He desires.  As Joseph said to his brothers near the end of his life: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Gen 50:20)

This is also seen in Daniel’s life, where every attack on him resulted in more glory for God and more influence for Daniel. “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.” (Pro. 19:21)

God’s faithfulness assures the right outcome. His plans are so certain that they can be expressed as finished before they come to pass: “…the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” Rev 13:8b The certainty that Jesus would die for us was so solid, so set in stone that God was able to express it as done before history even began.

So, when we wake up in the morning and find ourselves there with God, we are not only in His hand, we are in the stream of events that He is orchestrating around and in us in order to carry us forward in the task and purpose He has given us. We are moved on whether we know it or not. “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.” (Pro. 16:9)

We are given opportunities every day to join God in His plan, to cooperate through praise and thanksgiving, in obedience and awe, in self-denial and surrender to His higher and greater purposes.

To live in these truths allows us to see more of the wonders God has poured into our lives: meaning, purpose, protection, challenge, adventure, security, significance, honor, goodness and guidance, to name a few.

Each day is an opportunity to join our Heavenly Shepherd as He leads us forth into the pasture of the day, to know that we are moving forward in the perfect plan that He has prepared, filled with purpose and potential for providing Him glory, for defeating the enemy with praise, for seeing others swept into the Kingdom, for moving ahead with Him.

The negative feelings which will arise from our flesh, feelings of uselessness and purposelessness, of alienation and fear, are an affront to this reality. In Him we can turn from these feelings and live in the light of His presence, His purpose, His plan that is for our good and His glory.

Praise be to you, Lord God, for your mighty, unswerving, unstoppable wise and good plans, into which you have brought us. Praise you that we are in the great stream of your history, where you are moving things to a conclusion and carrying us with you. Praise you that our trust can be in you, rather than our own feeble wisdom and inadequate strength, rather than in government or the weather or money or power.

You, Lord God, Triune Lord, are all we need, for you are the Creator and Ruler of all. To you be glory today as I join you in the flow of events, listening to your Spirit, living in your power according to your Word, being a being of praise. May you be exalted in my life today. Amen.

< Read Part 8

So do we have heavenly wisdom? Perhaps it would be helpful to look at the opposite, devilish wisdom.  James 3:14, 15 says, “…if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.

Bitter envy: competition, seeking to defeat others, being jealous of other’s achievements and honors, wanting what they have.  The question is not, “Do I have envy?”  If we are honest, such desires rise up in our souls regularly.  The question is, “What do I do when envy raises its ugly head?” If I have heavenly wisdom, I will recognize this  envy right away before it becomes bitter and reject it in favor of the seven qualities of heavenly wisdom.

Selfish ambition: seeking to make myself look good, feel good, be successful (for the wrong motives), be significant and secure from my own efforts and the opinions of others.  This quality is totally self-centered.

The insidious thing about selfish ambition is that it can be disguised as a spiritual thing, “Working for the Lord,” “giving myself to ministry.” In reality, though, it is revealed when you don’t get your way, when others don’t cooperate, when you are instructed to do something in a more effective but less self-satisfying way.

Selfish ambition is seen primarily in our motives, and we do not often examine our motives naturally, but seek to ignore them. So we are back to the first quality of heavenly wisdom, purity.

It behooves us and is glorifying to God to regularly spend time in confession giving the Spirit time to bring up sins we didn’t notice. And it is also important to listen to what others have to say about us, about what the see as sin in our lives.  When several are saying he same thing, we need to pay very close attention.  And then we need to measure ourselves by the seven heavenly wisdom qualities, repent where necessary and cooperate with the Spirit in being wise in a heavenly way.

< Read Part 3

The next, the third quality of heavenly wisdom listed in James 3:17 is “considerate.”  This means thinking of others, of how my actions impact them. But the Greek word used here has even more “oomph” to it than “considerate.” It can also be translated as “being sweetly reasonable.”  That goes beyond just thinking of others to proactively bringing a warm, positive and equipping attitude into the situation.

How often has the Holy Spirit  had to ask me, “Are you being sweetly reasonable here?” And my response is usually, “Well, no, I’m not!” I’m often considerate in action, but not in spirit; and that can be felt by those around me.

However, when the sweetness of the Spirit is fueling my interactions, everything rises to a new level. I can reject my natural inclination to say “no” and look at things objectively. Instead of manipulating things to get my way, I can seek ways to empower others, rejecting my secret competitive, jealous thoughts. Because I know the God who is sweetly reasonable with me, I can be sweetly reasonable with others, bringing light and grace in where naturally I would bring grayness and grief.

That term “sweetly reasonable” is a wonderful way to measure our attitude and interactions with others. How are you doing with being sweetly reasonable in life?

Read Part 5 >

No one wants to be foolish; we’d all like to be wise, and God makes it entirely possible for all of His children to be so, if we are willing to cooperate with Him.

First He promises to give us wisdom when we ask Him for it. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”

Second He describes clearly in James 3:17 what it means to be wise. We will look at this further.

Third, the Holy Spirit is constantly seeking to give us more wisdom through the Word, if we spend the time and energy to read, study and meditate on it. In Proverbs 8:34 wisdom says, “Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway.”

The question for us is,  “Are we cooperating with God in being wise?” The first step is to recognize our need for heavenly wisdom and ask for it. If we are confident in our own wisdom, we will not seek His.

The second step is to know what heavenly wisdom looks like. Let’s look together at the description in James and see how human ideas of wisdom match up with this.

James 3:17 says: “…the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. “

Note that at the beginning and end of this list are firm, directing, strong elements (purity, impartiality and sincerity) while in the middle are tender, merciful and gracious ones (peace loving, reasonable, submission, mercy and good fruit).

The tender parts without the firm ones will lead to mushy sentimentality and appeasement; the firm parts without the tender ones will lead to legalism and merciless demands.  We need the whole spectrum of wisdom to be at work in our lives in order to have heavenly wisdom. It is a package, we are not given the option of picking and choosing.

Note also that these elements come in a certain order “First…then…” and so on. We need to be cultivating these qualities in the proper order, not jumping to the end without having laid the foundation for doing so.

God, in His usual fashion, has provided the elements needed for the foundation of wisdom and wants to work in partnership with us in building it. He can say “be wise” because He has prepared each element of wisdom for us to take up and use.

In the following parts of this article we will look at each part of heavenly wisdom.

Read Part 2 >

Often at the end of the day I have a nagging sense of failure. I feel as if I didn’t do enough today, that I wasn’t productive or useful.  This is my emotional perception, and I have learned that it is usually a distorted one. It is like your reflection in those curved mirrors at the carnival which show you with a tall, skinny head, a short fat body and huge feet. It is a twisting of reality.

Taking time to look at the day objectively gives us a much more realistic perspective.  When we were in language study, a time when one is reduced to the level of a 1 year old, unable even to ask where the bathroom is, I felt totally useless and unfulfilled. This wasn’t helped by a teacher who told me regularly what a terrible student I was.

The Lord helped me deal with this by having me list out all the things that I actually did in a day: I got up, had my quiet time, got dressed, brushed my teeth, had breakfast, got the kids off to school, went to class, came home, prayed through my list, spent 4 hours in study, got the kids from school, helped prepare supper, did the dishes, put the kids to bed, collapsed into bed myself, usually after getting undressed.

Most of these items I would never have counted as “accomplishments” in my life as a farmer or a tire dealer. They were things you had to do in order to get to the “real work.”

However, in reality they are accomplishments, and counting them helped me to have an objective measure of what I had done in a day—no matter how little I could say in my new language.

Now, many years later, each evening after getting into bed, I take the time to think through my day, thanking God for all the things He helped me to accomplish, big or small—as well as for the things that I was not able to accomplish, for that is in His hands, too.

This almost always changes my emotional perception of the day from a sad, melancholic view to a warm and thanks-filled one.  I then go to sleep in the positive truth that God has carried me through, used me in some way and thereby accomplished some of His great plan for the universe.

Going to sleep in the positive usually assures that I wake up with a thankful heart.  Psalm 143:8 describes this: “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you.”  When I go to sleep trusting in God and His version of the day, then I wake up thinking of His unfailing love, which gives me a great start on the next day.

So don’t trust the negative emotional perception of your day that your natural self feeds you.  Learn to, in the evening, objectively think through your day and count every positive thing that comes to mind, across the whole spectrum from brushing your teeth to leading someone to the Lord. And rejoice in Him!