For wisdom is better than jewels and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.
– Proverbs 8:11
Did you hear that statement? What God is saying to you and me right now in Proverbs 8:11 is that wisdom is better than jewels, better than money.
You think about how much you might desire more money or more things, more possessions, nicer possessions, and God is saying wisdom is infinitely better than this. All that you may desire. Proverbs 8:11 says, “Cannot compare with her.” With wisdom.
Proverbs 8:11 is a calling to seek wisdom above everything this world offers.
This verse is shouting to you and me seek wisdom more than you seek money. You think of all the different things you might do today to make money, namely going to work or going to school in order to prepare one day to have a job, in order to make money. God is saying, not that that’s bad, not that money is bad, but that wisdom is better. Wisdom is more important.
So today, just think about what you’re desiring today. What are you wanting today in your life? Just honestly think about it. Bring to your mind what you desire today and then hear God saying in Proverbs 8:11, “Wisdom is better than jewels and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.” This is why God was so pleased when Solomon could have asked for anything including wealth. He asked instead for wisdom, and God said, “I am pleased to give you wisdom in abundance and so many other things that then flow from wisdom.”
Proverbs 8:11 encourages us to plead God for wisdom.
So God, we pray today that you would help us to desire wisdom above all these things that the world surrounds us with and entices us with and wants us to desire. God, we pray right now and we plead for wisdom. We want it God, we desire wisdom in our lives. We want to live wisely today. Cause that to be our desire on a daily basis, to turn from foolishness and to live in wisdom and to seek you for it, knowing that you’re generous with it. That as the rest of Proverbs 8 goes on to say, that you are ready to give us all the wisdom we need in every facet of our lives. God, we praise you for your generosity with wisdom. We pray that you would help us to desire it daily, more than money or anything else in this world.
Oh God, that you would help us to spread it. Help us to spread your word that is wise. Help us to spread the gospel and the wisdom of the cross to use language from 1 Corinthians 1. Oh God, we pray you help us to speak wisdom into others’ lives today according to your Word. Help us to speak the gospel into people’s lives today, we pray. Give us boldness to share the gospel and God, use our lives for the spread of the gospel to all the world. All the peoples of the world.
Prayer for the Bobo Madare People
We intercede today for the Bobo Madare people of Burkina Faso, 283,000 of them, hardly any followers of Jesus among them. God, send out workers with the power of your Holy Spirit to proclaim the wisdom of Jesus, the wisdom of the cross of Christ and eternal life through Jesus among this people group, the Bobo Madare people of Burkina Faso. God, may they be reached with your Word. We pray that they might experience your wisdom in Jesus and your Holy Spirit who we have help us to live according to your wisdom today, desiring it above all the things of this world. In Jesus name, we pray according to Proverbs 8:11. 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.
