My son, if your heart is wise, my heart, too, will be glad.
– Proverbs 23:15
I want you to think about that verse. It’s so good. Just picture the perspective of a dad speaking to his son. “My son,” he says, “if your heart is wise, my heart, too, will be glad.”
Proverbs 23:15 teaches us to look for opportunities to serve others.
As a dad, I know the gladness that comes from seeing the wisdom in a child and seeing your child make a wise decision and act out of the overflow of a wise heart. That brings such gladness in a way that seeing a child act in a foolish way does not bring gladness of heart. And what I love about this verse is the emphasis it places on finding your gladness in others’ good. A dad finds gladness of heart in seeing a child act out of a wise heart, and this is love, to live for someone else’s good, to find joy in someone else’s good.
Well, it obviously applies to parent-child relationships, any mom or dad and a son or daughter, but think about how it applies to all of our relationships. Just look at the other people around you today. To live, to be glad in their good, to serve others in such a way that, as a result of your influence in their life, they’re better people. They’re living wise lives, living in the fear of the Lord. They’re walking with God as a result of your influence in their lives.
I just want to encourage you to live with that perspective today. Look for opportunities, certainly, with the people in your home to live, to find your gladness in their good, to serve them, to love them, to care for them, to the extent with which you have influence in their lives, to teach or instruct them or encourage them to live in wise ways, in ways that are good for them and in ways that bring gladness to your heart in the process. Oh, what does it look like for us to live like that every day, to be glad in others? Good.
Proverbs 23:15 calls us to reflect God’s love for others.
So God, we pray you’d help us to live like that, even as we think about how you, today in each of our lives, want us to live in wisdom. And you find gladness. You rejoice over us as we walk with you and enjoy you and experience good in our lives. God, we praise you as our perfect Father who finds gladness in our good. So God, help us to reflect your love for others around us today.
Certainly, for any of us who are parents or any of us who have influence over children, God, we pray that you would help us to live for their good and to be glad in seeing their good and serving them for good. And God, for all of us, no matter who we are, what age we are or relationships we have with the people around us, God, we pray that today you would help us to serve others for their good. Help us to find our gladness in promoting others’ good, even as you do this for us every day.
Jesus, we praise you for the gospel, for your love for us. Even though we have sinned against you, you have pursued us. You have laid down your life for our salvation, for our eternal good. All glory be to your name. So help us to shine this gospel in the way we live today. Help us to share this gospel with people around us today. We know that people’s ultimate good can only be found in you. So help us to share the gospel faithfully with somebody today.
Prayer for the Peripheral Mongolian People
And God, we pray for the spread of this gospel around the world… For the Peripheral Mongolian people of China… Five and a half million of them, hardly any of them knowing the good news of your love in Jesus. God, we pray for their good. We pray for the good of the peripheral Mongolian people, five and a half million of them in China. We pray for their good. Help us to live, use our resources, our lives, for the spread of the gospel, for their good, to find gladness and the spread of the gospel among all the nations. Father God, we pray all this according to your Word in Proverbs 3:15, in Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
