I always like it when the third and eighth days of each month come around because on those days I get to read two of my favorite Proverbs! I love reading things like this:

• You will win favor and a good name (3:4).
• Your barns will be filled to overflowing (3:10).
• Blessed is the man who finds Wisdom … long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor (3:16).
• With Me are riches and honor, enduring wealth and prosperity (8:18).
• For whoever finds Me finds life, and receives favor from the Lord (8:35).

Who wouldn’t want to hear promises like that? What a way to start your day. Who could be depressed and anxious after reading that?

But—and with God’s promises there is usually a “but”—these promises come with a number of qualifications and conditions. God wants to bless us “but” He also wants us to be holy. He wants to give us prosperity “but” he also wants us to have integrity.

Before He promises us “favor and a good name,” He tells us to keep His commands in our hearts, and never to let love and faithfulness leave us. Before He promises to fill our barns to overflowing, He tells us we must first honor Him with the firstfruits of all our crops.

Before He promises us long life, riches and honor, He warns us that the Lord disciplines those He loves, and enjoins us to find wisdom and understanding. Before He promises us enduring wealth and prosperity, He tells us to have wisdom, prudence, knowledge and discretion, and to both love Him and seek Him, walking in righteousness.

And before He promises us blessings and life and favor, He tells us to listen to Him, keep His ways, listen to His instructions and be wise, and to watch and wait daily at His doorway.

The Price Of God’s Promises

It was as I read those words “watch” and “wait” in Proverbs 8:34 that I felt the divine balance come into play. He never promises us anything without first setting out what He requires of us. This is the essence of the agreements He makes with us—even for salvation! While salvation is offered as a free gift, it was not “free” to God—it cost Him His Son—and we can receive it only as we come to Him in repentance and faith.

Wealth and prosperity are paired with watching and waiting and as we read through Proverbs 3 and 8 with an open heart, we start to see the balance come in:

• Do not forget My teaching … keep My commands in your heart (3:1).
• Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (3:5).
• Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil (3:7).
• Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops (3:9).
• Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it is in your power to act (3:27).
• Do not plot harm … do not accuse a man for no reason … do not envy a violent man (3:29-31).
• Gain prudence … gain understanding (8:5).
• Choose My instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold (8:10).
• Listen to Me … keep My ways … Listen to My instruction and be wise (8:32, 33).

For most modern people, everything has to be instant. We don’t like words like “patience” and “prudence” and “discipline” and “discretion” and “watching” and “waiting.” We want everything now and instant, from our potatoes and our pasta, to our relationships and our religion. We want it all, and we want it now. Instant gratification—worded much more politely—is the postmodern mantra.

And yet watching and waiting are regularly commanded, not only in the Old Testament, such as in the Book of Proverbs but also in the New Testament:

• Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching (Luke 12:37).
• Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints (Eph. 6:18).
• And behold there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25).
• And it came to pass that when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him; for they were all waiting for Him (Luke 8:40).
• And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body (Rom. 8:23).
• So that we come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:7).
• And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into patient waiting for Christ (2 Thess. 3:5).

So watching and waiting, seemingly so old-fashioned and “yesterday,” are in fact commanded to us in the Bible itself—the Living Word, which, far from being outmoded, is “…the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8).

Faithful Believers Stay Watchful

Pastor M.H. Reynolds, Jr., in his Daily Bible Study Guide devotionals, has an article entitled, “Watching, Warning, Waiting.” He says: “The Scriptures continually instruct believers to ‘watch and be sober.’ The fifth chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonian believers emphasizes this injunction (v.6). Watching is the opposite of sleeping, and no Christian should be found sleeping as the time of our Lord’s return draws nigh. Watch for His return; watch for the entrapments of Satan; watch for every opportunity to serve …

“(And) we must add ‘waiting’ to the list of adjectives that describe the faithful believer in these last days when opposition to the Truth is becoming increasingly more vehement. The Christian is not waiting for the world to get better or for the message of Christ to become more popular; he is, however, anxiously awaiting ‘the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’ and the fulfillment of all His great and precious promises. All that God has promised to the believer will one day be fully realized when he stands before the Lord Jesus Christ at His appearing … the promised end of our great salvation.”

Of course, watching and waiting are not passive words for the believer in the marketplace, He has told us very specifically to “do business till He comes” (Luke 19:13). The “God-kind” of watching and waiting are active and faith-filled activities. In fact, in Proverbs 8:34, “watching” is the Hebrew word “shaqad” which means “to be alert and on the lookout and to watch for,” while “waiting” is “shamar” which means “to hedge about (as with thorns), to guard, protect, attend to.”

So we are not commanded to sit back and watch and wait as it all happens around us, as if it is all some sort of cosmic “reality show” on TV. Paul puts it this way: “Therefore let us not sleep; but let us watch and be sober … putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thess. 5:6-8). “Be sober, be vigilant (watch); because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour; whom resist, steadfast in the faith…” (1 Pet. 5:8-9).

There is nothing passive about “doing business” and “resisting” the devil. We “watch” and we “wait” in expectant faith, going about our daily affairs in the marketplace in a way that honors God and sets an example of excellence and integrity, understanding that we may indeed be the only “Bible” that those around us may ever read.