God's Wisdom for Navigating Life

by Timothy Keller

  INTENTIONALITY. This says that a friend can be better than a sibling—quite a statement in a culture that was far more family oriented than ours. But how so? Your family may be there for you but they may not really like you or understand you. And there can be long stretches of life in which you have no romantic partner or spouse. A friend, however, may stick with you over the years closer than a brother.

  In the early stage of your life, you were shaped most by your family. But for the rest of your life you will be shaped largely by your friends. You become like the people with whom you spend the most time. As we will see, you can’t live without friendship. But remember how deliberate friendship must be. Erotic attraction and family relationships push themselves on you in various ways, but friendship will not. It must be carefully, intentionally cultivated through face-to-face time spent together. And in a busy culture like ours, it is one thing that is often squeezed out.

  How have your best friends over the years shaped and influenced you? Who are your best friends now?

  Prayer: Lord Jesus, you befriended a handful of disciples and through those friendships you changed the world. Help me choose my friends wisely, cultivate them carefully, and learn all I should learn from them so I can grow into the person you’ve called me to be. Amen.

  June 14

  A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity. . . . Many curry favor with a ruler, and everyone is the friend of one who gives gifts. The poor are shunned by all their relatives—how much more do their friends avoid them! . . . Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful person who can find? (17:17, 19:6–7, 20:6)

  CONSTANCY. What are the marks of a friend? The first we can call constancy. A friend loves at all times, through good times and ill. 19:6–7 reminds us of the painful truth that most relationships are transactional. That is, people seek out other people to get economic, social, or emotional benefits from their relationship. When someone becomes poor and loses their social utility, they are shunned and avoided by their so-called friends. “One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin” (18:24). And, we see, they were never really friends.

  Friends will be there for you when the chips are down, when you have very little to give to them. For a friend, you are not a means to some end but cherished for yourself. And constancy entails availability. Even when it’s inconvenient, you can get a friend at all times. However, this means that the best friendships take time, and everyone’s time is limited. So while in theory you could have many friends, 20:6 is realistic. Good friends don’t grow on trees, nor can you have a large number of them. Give more time to the ones you have.

  How can you be more intentional about deepening the friendships you have and giving more time to them?

  Prayer: Lord Jesus, you set your face to go up to Jerusalem to die. When you got there all hell was let loose upon you, and still you did not shrink but stood your ground—all for me. How can I, then, not be there for my friends in their times of need? Make me a great friend for others as you were for me. Amen.

  June 15

  Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. (27:5–6)

  TRANSPARENCY. A second requirement for friendship is transparency. The King James Version renders the first part of Proverbs 27:6 as “faithful are the wounds of a friend.” What are “faithful wounds”? The phrase means that real friends do open rebuke, they tell each other things they need to hear even if they are painful. If you are too afraid to say what needs to be said, you are really an enemy of your friend’s soul.

  Have you ever listened to a recording of yourself and thought, “I don’t sound like that”? But yes, you do—you can’t hear from within your body what your voice really sounds like outside. And without the perspective of others, we will never know our strengths and weaknesses. If you have a measure of status in the world, or if you have chosen friends poorly, you may be just be surrounded by flatterers (29:5). Transparency is scary, but we need it. And to get courage, look to the one who became so vulnerable for you that he died on the cross. How faithful were the wounds of this friend for you!

  How many real friends do you have—friends who will speak the truth in love to you?

  Prayer: Lord Jesus, you became a vulnerable human being to show us the truth about ourselves. You were faithful and constant even to death on the cross. Now, Lord, reproduce in me that same character and let me be a friend to others as you have been a friend to me. Amen.

  June 16

  Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on a wound, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart. . . . If anyone loudly blesses their neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse. (25:20, 27:14)

  SENSITIVITY. A third mark of friendship is sensitivity and tact. Why does someone show inappropriate heartiness when others are just waking up (27:14)? Why do they use humor inappropriately (26:19) or speak lightheartedly to grieving people with a heavy heart (25:20)? It is because they are emotionally disconnected and therefore clumsy. They don’t know the other person’s inner topography well enough to know what hurts or helps, what inspires or bores, what stimulates or irritates.

  If I can be content when you are sad, I’m not your friend (25:20). Friends voluntarily tie their hearts to one another. They put their happiness into their friends’ happiness, so they can’t emotionally flourish unless their friends are flourishing too. Jesus tied his heart to us so that even in his suffering he knew joy because of the salvation he was bringing to us (Hebrews 12:2; cf. Isaiah 53:11). The friendship connection may not be as emotionally intense as that which comes in romance, nor always as enduring as family ties (though remember 18:24 on June 13). All the more reason friendship is so valuable, because such a link is both deliberate and voluntary.

  Are you putting in the effort to be a friend?

  Prayer: Lord, our sin causes you pain (Genesis 6:6) and our broken hearts draw you to our side (Psalm 34:18). You love us more tenderly and sensitively than a nursing mother does her child (Isaiah 49:15). Let me be so moved by your love for me that it makes me highly sensitive to the needs of those around me. Amen.

  June 17

  As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. (27:17)

  COUNSEL. The fourth mark of a true friend is counsel. Friends give “heartfelt advice” (27:9). Friends sharpen and challenge one another, being vulnerable and sensitive to one another but also making proposals for how the other should change. Friends regularly have constructive clashes that sharpen each party’s understanding of the world and of themselves.

  Therapists give you advice, but you don’t do it back. A supervisor may offer criticism, but it would not be appropriate to give equal criticism back. The mutuality of the deep counsel that friends can give is rare and something everyone needs. Sometimes it is sweet and pleasant (27:9 on June 18) and sometimes sharp and perhaps painful (27:17). True friendship is both “reassuring and bracing.”142 If you have this kind of exchange and growth in a romantic relationship or in a family relationship, it is because you have incorporated this aspect of friendship into those connections. But you’re never going to become the person you need to be, or that you can be, without it. It sharpens you the way nothing else does.

  With how many people do you share a relationship in which there is mutual counsel and critique?

  Prayer: Lord, today to “friend” something is to “like” rather than dislike. I have not been conditioned to have friends who dislike things about me and tell me so! But my heart knows—and your Word says—that I need them. Lead them to me and give me the willingness to be open to them. Amen.

  June 18

  Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice. (27:9)

  DISCOVERY. Friendship is pleasantness that means, literally, sweetness. At the time of Proverbs, people could not cre
ate sweetness in food, only discover it. Friendship is like that. We can work at it, enhancing constancy, transparency, sensitivity, and counsel. Yet friendship begins with a discovery. We must find persons with common loves and vision. C. S. Lewis wrote, “Where the truthful answer to the question, ‘Do you see the same truth?’ would be, ‘I see nothing and I don’t care about the truth; I only want a friend,’ no friendship can arise. . . . There would be nothing for the friendship to be about. . . . Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow travelers.”143

  Christian faith can create a deep affinity between people who are different in every other way. That is why friendship between believers from diverse racial backgrounds can be so powerfully formative. They are empowered by faith in the ultimate friend of our souls (John 15:13–15), whose constancy, vulnerability, and love cannot be surpassed.

  Do you have Christian friendships across racial and national barriers? How could you cultivate new ones and deepen the ones you may have?

  Prayer: Lord, your gospel brings down barriers between people of different ethnicities and cultures (Galatians 3:26–28), yet I associate and hang out with my own (racial and social) kind too much. Enrich me and show the world the power of the gospel by helping me grow in cross-racial Christian friendships. Amen.

  Words

  June 19

  The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. . . . The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. (12:18, 18:21)

  WORDS KILL. You are not wise unless you fully grasp the power of words. Words pierce like swords—they get into your heart and soul. When you say a hurtful word, you can never make things as if it had never been uttered. It’s like the wound from a sword. The wound may heal, but your body will never be the same as if the sword had never cut you. The scar remains.

  Words of the reckless can wound your reputation, making it hard for people to ever fully trust you again. 18:21 goes further and says that words can even kill. Words have been triggers for murders, suicides, and actual wars. Also, words kill psychologically. Call a child “stupid” or “not worth anything” and that person may spend all his or her life trying to rid him- or herself of the self-doubts it has planted in them. Words designed to hurt are like toxic chemicals. Once they get into the ground, they just pollute everything. Sticks and stones can only break our bones, but words can be soul destroying.

  Have you seen the toxic power of rash words in your life or the lives of others?

  Prayer: Father, help me to guard my lips so that I don’t wound someone deeply with rash words. And also, let me so immerse myself in your Word and what it tells me of who I am in Christ, so that other people’s hurtful words won’t wound me. Amen.

  June 20

  From the fruit of their lips people are filled with good things, and the work of their hands brings them reward. . . . The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit. (12:14, 15:4)

  WORDS MAKE ALIVE. Words can wound but also heal. The tongue can be soothing and a tree of life. Words are like fruit or food for us; we need them to live. Most of us can remember, years later, the words from a passage in a book, or said by a friend or teacher, that “turned on a light,” or that implanted new ideas that we never forgot.

  We also need words coming from the outside to affirm and validate us. Imagine an artist who does a painting. Does she say, “I don’t care that everyone else says it’s trash; I like it”? If she is going to truly take pride in her work, someone else will need to offer words of praise for the art. Supremely, the Word of God has a living power to relate us to God and change our minds and hearts (Hebrews 4:12; 1 Peter 1:23). We do not live by bread alone but by good words, especially those in line with God’s.

  Are you aware of the great power even your offhand words have to bless others? When was a time you have seen this power in your life or someone else’s?

  Prayer: Lord, each of us has a host of people around us who are eager for, and desirous of, words of blessing and affirmation from us. I am often too distracted to deliberately praise and appreciate people every day. Find me ways to say to others, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23). Amen.

  June 21

  A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends. (16:28)

  WORDS DIVIDE. Friendships, as we have seen, are all about words. But malicious and hurtful, dishonest and deceptive, and even just clumsy and inappropriate words can deliver a blow to a friendship from which the relationship may never recover.

  Here speakers with two kinds of relationship-destroying speech are mentioned. The first is the person who stirs up conflict. As we have seen, candor is good, even when the truth telling is painful. But there is also a kind of person who loves debate, who gives criticism too readily, and who always seems to be in the middle of an argument with someone. The other kind is a gossip, someone who criticizes people behind their backs, putting them in the worst light. (About gossip more comes later in the year.) Bruce Waltke says that both kinds of speakers have a need to always put others down as a way of building themselves up.144 This makes close friendship impossible. Instead we should look to the one who does not quarrel or shout at people (Matthew 12:19–20) but speaks kindly to his friends even when they let him down (Matthew 26:41).

  Where have you last seen either of these behaviors do damage to relationships?

  Prayer: Lord, help me to be honest with myself about the divisiveness of my words. I tell myself that I’m just speaking up for the truth, but lay bare my motives so I can see when I am really only trying to make myself look good. That happens far more often than I dare to think. Amen.

  June 22

  Evildoers are trapped by their sinful talk, and so the innocent escape trouble. From the fruit of their lips people are filled with good things, and the work of their hands brings them reward. (12:13–14)

  WORDS FILL. The parallelism here is revealing. In verse 14 good words fill us inwardly with good things. The implication is that evil speech’s harm is also inward (verse 13). How? Words embody and strengthen thoughts. When you say, “I hate you. I wish you were dead,” you say it because you feel it. But afterward you feel it more because you said it. What you say fills your heart.

  This does not mean you should not be honest about your feelings (cf. 10:18). But when you have hate, you should use words to confess it, not to ventilate it. Talk about it to God or to friends and say, “I have this anger, this discouragement, this temptation.” Your words will, as it were, make the thoughts visible. You can sift them and get perspective on them and throw out the foolish and sinful ones much more easily because you’ve talked about them. Managing our speech is a way to get our whole self under control (James 3:2). Jesus was perfect and so his speech was perfect (John 7:46).

  Where have you seen this idea about the inwardly shaping power of words illustrated in your own life?

  Prayer: Lord, I can truly pray, “Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips” (Psalm 141:3). I beg you to do that, mainly for the sake of your name but also because my heart cannot survive my evil words. Amen.

  June 23

  Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin. (13:3)

  WORDS EXPOSE. This saying warns against speaking rashly, but that is more than just a lack of carefulness. The Hebrew word is often used for sexual promiscuity, for exposing things that should be kept covered. Impulsive, imprudent talk refers to how our words can reveal the deepest recesses of the heart. So while foolish speech can harm us inwardly (June 22) it can also harm us outwardly, exposing us to the world. There are innumerable examples of people who spoke rashly and were discredited and shamed for their speech forever after.

  According to Jesus, all words—good and bad—are indicators of our heart. “Th
e mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Matthew 12:34). The tongue reveals what is at the core of our being (James 1:26). An abrasive tongue, a lying tongue, a foolish tongue—all of these are signs of a person who has resentment, dishonesty, and pride in his or her own heart. But the irony is this: Others will be able to see (through your words) more of your heart than you will.

  Recall a time when your rash words brought you trouble. What in your heart led to it?

  Prayer: Lord, I know I must change my heart, putting to death its sinful impulses (Romans 8:13). But I take my good time, because I think no one can see the selfishness, pride, and anxiety of my heart except you and me. But my tongue shows it to the world. No more procrastination. Help me change. Amen.

  June 24

  The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts. (18:8)

  WORDS INTERPRET. Gossip makes the speaker look good and the object of the gossip look bad. We will look in more detail at gossip later in the year. For now the more general lesson is that words have the power to define reality. Words do not just report facts—they explain their meaning, and that determines how the listeners see the world and live in it.

  Negative words about someone go down to the inmost parts, meaning, in this case, they control how we see the person. Though God wants us to have truth in our inward parts (Psalm 51:6), there are many things we would more readily believe about ourselves and the world, and so words that distort reality are choice—they have enormous appeal. Words create and sustain prejudices, biases, fears, and anxieties that are virtually impossible to uproot.