Proverbs 30:8 Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches: feed me with food convenient for me
How virtuous are you? How strong are you? It is difficult for any of us to judge this about self because we are not as good or strong as we think we are. That is the phrase that came to my mind as I read Proverbs 30. For instance, maybe you can run like a jackrabbit, but think about what happened the moment you had Covid. Doubtless there is someone who says, “I ran through the mountains the third day I had Covid.” Well, good for you if you survived, but the truth is that it takes very little physically to take our strength and make it almost nothing. It is the same with virtue. It is very easy to serve when I am appreciated. I love when people say, “Wil Rice, what a servant of the Lord,” but when they actually start to treat me like a servant, I don’t like that. So, we are not really as good or strong as we think we are.
Proverbs 30:8 says, “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches: feed me with food convenient for me.” Verse 9 says, “Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.” Someone has said, “We attribute our virtues to our own character and we attribute our weaknesses to an upset stomach.” That just goes to show how fragile our virtue and strength are.
I am thinking of the father of some friends I had. He lived with pain a good half of his life. I don’t think I ever realized what good humor he was in considering the pain he endured. Some years ago, when I had slight back and muscle pain that persisted for a month or so, my wife said, “You are not as patient as you used to be.” She was right. I wasn’t my normal self. That is because we attribute our virtues to our character. The moment we don’t have some virtue we say, “I don’t feel well.” This was the devil’s accusation of Job to God. The devil essentially said, “Of course Job loves you. Look how good You have been to Job. Just remove Your hand from Job and he will curse You to Your face.”
All that to say, and this hurts me to realize, but I am not as good or strong as I think I am. So, think about two things. First, you need God for daily bread. The proverb says, “Give me, feed me, not too much but not too little. Give me the food needful for every day.” Jesus said we are to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” yet as Americans we are living in such prosperity that we have food out of season, from abroad, and at any time we want it. Most of us have never prayed for food or that God would keep us from starving because we don’t need to. That is the problem because the primary need is not bread; it is God. It is not the gift; it is the Giver. We need God for daily bread.
Second, we need God for good, meaning there is no good apart from God. Against what would you measure good or bad if there is no absolute standard, no God? Someone says, “I’m a nice guy if you are decent to me.” Wow! What character and amazing virtue you have! I’m being sarcastic because anyone can be kind and gentle when they are treated well. The truth is I am good when I don’t need to be bad. I think all of us are. The bottom line is that I need to seek God first. I need God every day of my life both for my physical needs and for the virtues I want to see in my life both for daily bread and for good. The psalmist says, “Give me not too much, nor give me too little. If I have too much, then I will brag.” Israel did this. God warned them about going into the land of Canaan, being proud because they were full, and not realizing that God had given them all of it.
The prayer is don’t let me be so poor that I steal. This is a legitimate prayer. I actually prayed that this morning, to not be too rich or too poor, to trust God for everything. Now, being too rich is not a problem I see on my horizon, but compared to the vast majority of people in this world I am rich and blessed beyond measure. If I am not careful, I can become independent and think I am all that. When days are bad, I can have a lack of character that does not reflect the Lord Jesus and the God who made me. I am not as good as I want to be. I need God for bread; I need God for good; and I need to seek God first today.