Proverbs 17

Especially in America, we spend much of our lives in the pursuit of getting. We work at getting an education, getting a job, getting job security, getting a house, getting a car, getting love, getting a retirement plan—getting, getting, getting. And in Proverbs, I believe Solomon’s main point is, In all your getting, get wisdom. In all your getting, get the things that are important. In all your getting, don’t pass over the permanent for the perishable.

That was certainly the message right off the bat in today’s chapter: “A dry piece of food with peace and quiet is better than a house full of food with fighting.” (vs 1) This is just another way of saying that what is really important in life are all the things that money can’t buy. You can be the richest person on the face of the Earth, but if your home is not a place of peace and security, if you are not loved when you walk through the door, you are actually a very poor person.

At the end of the day, you can’t hug your bank account.

In the spirit of this message today, I wanted to share with you a portion of a blog I read many years ago that has stuck with me to this day. It was written by a young man who was serving as a student missionary in Chad, Africa. You can imagine what a culture shock it must be to go from a country like America to a country like Chad. But something he wrote about the people there made me just a little bit envious:

God is here, God is big, God is strong. These are words that almost always come from Chadians when they are explaining a problem to me, or when I’m explaining one of my problems to them. Many of them trust God for everything. When telling me that they don’t have any food to feed their five children, they often follow up by saying that God will provide work for them to pay for that, and for everything else. I was raised in a country where a “poor person” has a junky car and a small house. These people have nothing, but they are the happiest people I have ever met in my life. Kids are content to sit on the ground and talk to each other. They don’t have to have their cell phones or their gaming devices. Adults spend their free time talking to friends and building relationships. Not watching a meaningless TV show or spending hours on Facebook.

Their simple way of life is difficult and painful here, but in my mind, they are better off without the distractions. I could walk to any home in my village, at any time of the day, and someone would pull out a chair (of sorts) for me and sit down to find out all about me. In the States, most of us just don’t have time for that. We’re too focused on our own goals and ambitions. Just some thoughts I have had. Are we too distracted by our own ambition? Maybe so, maybe not, but time is worth so much.

From the first day I read that, I have never forgotten it. Since then, I have read it over and over, so I never forget that the terms “rich” and “poor” are totally relative—and not just in terms of money either! I could compare myself to a Chadian in a financial sense and maybe feel pretty rich. But, according to this post, if I compared myself to a Chadian in an emotional or relational sense, would I discover that I am really very poor? I’m afraid I just might.

The Bible also indicates that we may not be so adept at recognizing who’s “rich” and who’s “poor.” In Revelation 3, God spoke to the church in Laodicea: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” (Rev 3:17) I wonder if those Laodicean church members had outreach programs to help the poor, never imagining that, in fact, they were the poor.

God sees and judges things differently than we do—He always has. That’s why He tells us, through Solomon, to make sure that in all of our time spent getting, we don’t miss out on getting the truly important things, the things that can’t be bought in the store, the things that we will look back and wish we had (or be glad we had) when we come to the end of our life on Earth.

All the things we have will come and go. We may be financially rich now and lose it all next year. We may have nothing today and come into a financial windfall next week. Regardless of how many things we have now, they will all be gone at some point, and being secure in what is permanent puts all the perishables into perspective. As the tide of change continues to swirl around us and others in this world, God desperately wants us to have peace.

Truly, in this year, in the current pandemic climate, if you have this peace, then you are as wealthy as a king, and no one can steal your riches! But if you do not have this peace, then you are poor and to be greatly pitied, and no amount of money can lift you out of that poverty. (That’s a lesson Solomon himself found out the hard way.) So, take it from him: in all your getting, make sure you get the things that are important!