“ Two things I ask of You, O Lord:

Do not refuse me before I die:

Keep falsehood and lies far from me;

Give me neither poverty nor riches,

But give me only my daily bread.”

                               Proverbs 30: 7-8

These wise words we find in Proverbs 30, under the Sayings of Agur son of Jakeh. Agur and Jakeh were basically unknown and unmentioned until this chapter and after these sayings of Agur, they go unheard in the Bible.

It is assumed that Agur and his father must have lived at the time of King Solomon and they must have been wise enough for their sayings to be included with the sayings of Solomon in the book of Proverbs.

I stand in awe before this man whose heart yearned to ask God for the things that would give him a righteous living that pleased God. We are not told of his age, but had the wisdom to exceed that of any old sage.

If given a choice of two requests to ask God, which of us would have asked for things like him.

He wanted falsehood and lies far from him. Why did he ask for that instead of asking for trouble free and sickness free life?

Research study reveals that Agur was famous in his generation for wisdom, piety and prophesy.

And his father’s name Jakeh means pious or carefully religious.

Probably Agur lived and moved around a religious community whose falsehood and hypocrisy made him so detestable that he wanted to get rid of any such straits within him to worship God and interact with others genuinely and be trust worthy.

Jesus too came across such falsehood and self-righteous attitude among the religious leaders in His time and confronted them. Likewise, we Christians too find many of us walking  with masks on. Sweet and smiling on Sundays at church and rude and self-serving on other days.

Do you think any one of us would have aske for neither poverty nor riches, but only the needed allowance of daily bread? No way! We need a contended heart to ask for such wise things.

Instead, we would have jumped at the offer and shouted, ‘ Prosperity! Bigger car, better job or a mansion overlooking the sea to beat the one your neighbor recently bought.’ Sadly, that’s the pathetic stage we are in this day and age. That is the world we are living in and we have no time to think and learn to be wise and ask for things like Agur in Solomon time. In the Kingdom of God, the child like attitude stands high, but the world sees child -like attitude as childish. It expects such people to grow up to to adjust to the pattern of the world. Otherwise, it says we’ll be left behind in the race to succeed and prosper.

Which way would you choose? God’s or the World’s?