Proverbs 30, the words of Agur: just who is Agur?
There are a variety of answers. The name Agur means, compiler or collector.
Has this Agur compiled sayings? Is he reflecting on his life?
The tone is one of regret, “I am weary of God…surely I am too stupid to be a man…I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.”
While he may not think he has knowledge of the Holy One, verses 4 -6 contain much wisdom. They cause other Scriptures to jump to my mind. Jesus’ three references in John to ascending (3:13, 6:62, 20:17) and Job 38.
In many ways this one chapter reminds me a bit of the Book of Ecclesiastes, where the writer describes all is vanity. Here too, in Proverbs 30, the compiler notes the various mysteries that he does not know or understand.
Yet there are three verses that jump out at me.
7Two things I ask of you;
deny them not to me before I die:
8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
9 lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the Lord?”
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.
Immediately I think: A Prayer for Contentment—with life and with God!
How much striving in our lives is because we lack contentment?
In our message-drenched world, the message is the same, you’ll only be content when…
When you purchase our product, join our group, etc.
People, especially younger folks who marketers began inundating back at the end of the 20th century, have become acutely sensitive to this messaging—yet we seem to not escape it.
But humanity’s search for contentment is not new. It goes all the way back to when we were sent out of the Garden by God.
The well-known axiom from Augustine, “…our hearts are restless, until they rest in you…” is the second sentence of his work titled Confessions.
Verses such as Philippians 4:11-13, 1 Timothy 6:6-12, and 2 Cor. 12:9-10 jump to mind.
I note in these verses that they encourage us to work towards this state of contentment—a state of being content “in” Jesus.
Proverbs is a book that encourages, chides us, beg us…to press on with living a life that is shaped by God and God’s Word.
A life shaped in this way is life always being filled by Jesus. This is not “get filled with Jesus” once, but daily.
I am still working on this kind of life.
What does contentment “look like” for you?