Looking for wisdom that actually changes how you live, not just what you know? We open a new series through Proverbs by reframing wisdom as a relationship you cultivate, not a pile of tips you memorize. Starting with Proverbs 1:1–6, we unpack why the book was written, who it’s for, and how it trains us to hear the right voice in a world full of noise.
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Favor is a word we throw around like it’s a reward program, but Proverbs 11:27 doesn’t read like a transaction to me. It reads like a direction. We start with the uncomfortable question hiding in plain sight: am I “seeking good” because I love what’s right, or because I’m trying to get something back from people or from God? When we unpack the language behind diligently seeking, the point sharpens fast: goodness isn’t bait, and favor isn’t a vending machine payout. Favor is delight that sits downstream of alignment with God’s character.
Then we go straight at the frustration most of us feel but don’t always say out loud: if evil comes back around, why do some of the meanest people seem to be doing just fine? We look at the Bible’s “pit” principle and why a proverb isn’t a stopwatch. The trap doesn’t always spring by Friday, and the first harvest of evil is often internal, showing up as paranoia, isolation, and relationships you can’t truly trust even while the outside looks successful.
From there we talk about farming metaphors Jesus kept using, and why our hearts function like soil. Actions, habits, and choices grow into a person. That includes a careful take on the “fake it till you make it” idea, plus two real stories: one about biting my tongue in a neighbor conflict, and one about my oldest daughter sharpening her skills instead of chasing big titles until the “kings” came looking. We also call out prosperity gospel “seed money” manipulation, and the practical difference between bread for today and seed for tomorrow.
If you’re tired of chasing outcomes and still coming up empty, hit play, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review telling me what you’re choosing to plant this week.
If you've ever struggled to hear God's voice, you aren't alone. My book, God, Why Won’t You Talk to Me?, was written for anyone seeking a deeper connection. Available now on Amazon: https://a.co/d/05KuPfd1
Well, welcome back to another day in Proverbs. Today we're going to be in Proverbs chapter 11, verse 27. And I'm going to say this is called What Are You Actually Seeking? Stop Chasing the Harvest and Learn to Farm. Well, good morning everybody and welcome back. Grab your Bible, some coffee, and let's spend a few minutes in the Word together. Last week we talked about the seed God's already placed in your hands, and whether you got the guts enough to plan it. This week we're staying right there in Proverbs chapter eleven, verse twenty seven, and honestly, the more I sat with this one, the bigger it became. So here's the verse. He who diligently seeks good seeks favor, but he who searches after evil it will come to him. On the surface, that sounds simple. Do good, good things happen. Go looking for evil, evil eventually finds you. But underneath it there is a question I couldn't shake all week, and I think a lot of you have asked the same version of it too, whether you said it out loud or not. Is seeking good just a strategy? Example, am I doing good because it's good or because I want something back for what I've done? And there's a second question hiding in the verse. If evil really does come back around on people, why do some of the meanest people I know seem to be doing just fine? So today we're going to dig into both of these. We're going to talk about the law of the harvest, why Jesus kept pointing back to farmers, and how obeying the word can change your heart, even when your flesh doesn't want to cooperate. Why some of the prosperity preaching flat out ticks me off, and am I going to give you and I'm going to give you two real stories out of my own life. One about a neighbor and one about my oldest daughter. That show me this verse is just as true today as it was three thousand years ago. Alright, let's dig in.
Part one seeking God isn't a strategy. Let's start with the first half of the verse. He who diligently seeks good seeks favor. A couple of the Hebrew words are worth opening up. Diligently seeks is the word shakar. It's got the picture of searching for something early at first light, like you're getting up before dawn because you're that serious about finding it. And favor is a word rats on. It means delight, goodwill, acceptance. It shows up in Proverbs eight thirty five, which says, For he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. Favor isn't a business transaction. It's somebody taking delight in you. And as a quick side note, remember Jesus saying only God is good? That's worth uh pondering a little bit. Now here's the question I couldn't shake. Is seeking good actually a little selfish of me underneath? Am I only kind to somebody because I want them to like me or because I want God to, let's say, owe me one? I don't think that's what Solomon's describing. If I'm doing good just to manipulate an outcome, that's not seeking good. That's seeking favor and using goodness as a bait to get it. There's a real difference between transactional manipulation and spiritual alignment. Manipulation says I'll put on a show of kindness so I can get what I want out of this person, or even out of God. Spiritual alignment says something completely different. It says I'm going to pursue what's actually good for other people, not just for myself. Remember that word rats on favor? It's tied to God's own character in Proverbs eight thirty five. Not just to get people's approval. Seeking good lines up with who God is. Favor isn't the goal, it's what happens to be sitting downstream of the goal. And here's the test I kept coming back to. Why would you still do the good thing if nobody ever found out it was you? Hmm.
Now the second half of the verse, but he who searches after evil it will come to him. I know people like that, generally unkind. They don't even try to hide it. And from the outside their life looks completely prosperous. So when does evil come to them? Solomon's own cross reference answers that pretty directly. Esther chapter seven tells the story of Haman, who built gallows to execute a man he hated, and ended up hanging on them himself. Psalm seven says it's a general principle, he has dug a pit and hollowed it out, and has fallen into the hole which he made. His mischief will return upon his own head. And Psalm seventy fifty seven says almost the identical thing. They dug a pit before me, they themselves has fallen into the midst of it. If you've ever felt the frustration watching a cruel person prosper, you're in good company. Asaph, one of the songwriters in the Psalms, wrote an entire psalm about this exact crisis. He said he was envious of the arrogant when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. They had no struggles. They were always at ease. They kept increasing in riches. He was losing it a little, honestly, until he says he went into the sanctuary of God. Then he understood where it they were all actually headed. A proverb like this isn't a stopwatch. It's not promising the trap springs by this Friday. It's a general law of how God's moral universe operates. Not in an instant, not like a microwave promise. Some harvests take longer than others. But nobody outruns what they plant. You don't outrun it forever. And the wicked man's own life is usually where the trap springs first. Where? In a lost soul, paranoia, isolation, relationships he can't actually trust. A soul that's a wasteland even while the outside looks fine.
Now, can't acting right actually change your heart? Here's something I keep noticing. When Jesus walked this earth, he kept pointing back to farmers. Look at the sower, look at the soil, look at the seed, look at that vine and the branches. Over and over he says this. It's because our hearts and life work like soil. Whatever we plant into them, thoughts, habits, actions, they grow. There's no getting around this truth. So here's the questions that's been sitting with me. What if you start out with mixed motives? Let's say hypothetically your heart isn't a hundred percent pure. You're doing good to people partly because you actually want good in return. Is it wrong to say that if you keep practicing it, you'll eventually turn into a generally good person? Is there a biblical version of fake it till you make it? I think the answer is yes, with a real caveat attached to it. C. S. Lewis talked about this in mere Christianity. He said that when you're not feeling particularly loving towards somebody, but you choose to act as if you love them anyway, something happens. You presently come to love them more. When you force your hands and your tongue to do what's right, even while your flesh is fighting you the whole way, you're breaking up hard ground. You start experiencing the actual beauty and freedom of living rightly. And over time that displaces the selfish motive. The caveat is what Jesus called out in the Pharisees. If you're only performing goodness outwardly while nursing pride or bitterness on the inside, you're not planting a seed. You're basically painting dead grass, painting it like a green color. The goal is never to wear a mask, it's to let obedience soften your heart until the mask becomes your actual face.
Let me give you a real example because it's a lot easier to nod along with a proverb than it is to live it. A few years back I had a neighbor putting real pressure on me over some things. I was the things that I was doing to my yard, it got heavy for a while, several tense meetings, back and forth. We were both mature enough to eventually work it out. But here's the part that mattered more. Around some of my other neighbors, there was real bitterness towards this gentleman. I could have joined in, my flesh wanted to, honestly, but I leaned on a scripture instead, which said he who despises his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding keeps silent. Right in this same chapter we've been studying, Proverbs eleven twelve. So I kept my mouth shut. I didn't call him a fool to the other neighbors, even when it would have felt real good to. A couple three years later, we ended up at the same gathering. He's older than me, and both he and his wife were so kind, she gave me a hug like nothing had ever happened between us. I remember standing there thinking, what a turnaround. There was no leftover tension in it at all. And here's something got me thinking deeper though. I didn't hear an audible voice telling me, Don't talk bad about your neighbor today. What happened was I read that scripture and something in my spirit said, This one's for you right now. Act on it. That's a little different than what people usually mean when they say they heard from God. I still believe faith is mostly hearing God personally, but this was more like I took his written word and I trusted it enough to actually obey it in that moment, even though my flesh wanted a different outcome entirely. I think that's what Romans twelve three is in action. God gives each of us a measure of faith, and we're responsible for stewarding what actually has been shown to us, not somebody else's walk. Without the Spirit's guidance, you have to be careful just picking out a scripture to act on. For example, Jesus said pluck out your eye or cut off your hand if it causes you to sin. Nobody that I know has literally ever done that. For some reason they don't stand on that verse. It's Jesus using shock language to say deal ruthlessly with whatever's leading you towards sin. In my case, the thing that needed cutting off wasn't a body part, it was my mouth and my right to vent. I planted restraint instead of bitterness. It took a couple of years for that seed to turn into anything, but it did.
There's a companion verse a few chapters later that belongs right next to today's, and that's Proverbs twenty two verse twenty nine. It says, Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings, he will not stand before obscure men. Notice what Solomon doesn't say. He doesn't say Do you see a man desperately chasing money? He'll stand before kings. He points at the skill, not the hustle. The man sharpened something, he got good at something, and his skill carried him into rooms that desperation alone never could have gotten him into. A couple chapters later, Solomon warns us about the alternative in Proverbs twenty three verse four through five says, Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, cease from your consideration of it. When you set your eyes on it, it is gone, for wealth certainly makes itself wings, like an eagle that flies towards the heavens. Chase the harvest directly and it tends to slip right through your fingers. Chase the skill, chase serving people well, and the harvest tends to find you. I think that's the same law we've been circling this whole episode, just wearing a different outfit. Seek God instead of seeking favor. Sharpen the axe instead of chasing the crown. Solomon keeps handing us the same principle from different angles because it's apparently one we need to hear more than once. Here's the second
story. My oldest daughter always wanted big law in Manhattan, New York, the whole thing. For years she took smaller paying jobs to sharpen her skills, instead of holding out only for the dream position, because she understood something a lot of us miss. Serve the people actually in front of you. She was always diligently seeking good. She wasn't chasing the big firms. She was sharpening her axe, building a reputation, learning the trade, being excellent with the clients she already had, even though none of them were the ones she originally pictured in her mind. There were moments watching her where I honestly wondered if she was ever going to get to the shot she wanted. From the outside, some of those years looked hard and exhausting labor. She wasn't settling, she was farming her ground. And if you have ever literally farmed any ground, you know how hard that is. And eventually the big firm started coming to her. She didn't chase the kings. The kings came looking for the woman who quietly became excellent at her work. Like the scripture says, she's literally standing before modern day kings right now, and she never had to grovel for the seat. Jesus says something that fits perfectly here. He who's faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much. That's Luke 16, verse ten. That's the opposite of how we naturally think. We think, give me the big opportunity, and then I'll show you what I can do. Wisdom says, show what you can do with what's already in your hand, and let somebody with a bigger fill notice what you've been growing in the little one of your own. Now maybe you're listening to this thinking, that's great for your daughter, Ed, but I'm working a job for 18 bucks an hour and I don't see any kings anywhere near me. Here's what I say. Maybe you're standing in your seed right now and you don't recognize it. That job you think is beneath you might be exactly where God's teaching you how to farm. Learn everything you can there. Become excellent. Solve problems nobody's asking you to solve. Your current field doesn't have to be your final field. It might just be where you're leaning, learning to work the ground.
Now let's talk about something that genuinely bothers me because it ties directly into how manipulators misuse scripture towards hurting people. Most of us are hurting financially. And right now, on cue, some of these ministers slide onto the screen and say, Send me your seed money, and God will unlock your miracle. I don't see that in Scripture. That's not sowing and reaping. That's a slot machine wearing a Bible verse. Look at Second Corinthians nine ten instead, which says, Now he who supplies seeds to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed. Sown and increase the harvest of your righteousness. Notice the two different things God provides bread to eat, that's your immediate relief, today's need. Then you need a seed to sow. That's the capital, the ideas, the relationships, the opportunities meant to be planted for tomorrow. People get into trouble when they confuse the two, sowing their bread out of panic, or eating their seed instead of planting it. I've noticed this shift in my own life. For a long time my prayer was basically God help me make more money. Somewhere along the way it turned into something closer to God, where are you leading me? What can I do that actually helps people? And it's strange, but money started flowing the second question in a way it never followed the first one. I don't say that to sound like I've got it all figured out. I say it because I spent years thinking my problem was that I needed more money. When I what really I just needed to stop chasing the harvest and start learning how to farm. If you're in a season right now where the bills feel bigger than the paycheck, I understand the temptation to just ask God for a number. It's not wrong to want to be out of debt. But the fastest way there usually isn't just a bigger number. A better question, instead of how do I make more money, try asking, what's the good I can actually do with what's already sitting in my hand right now? And that's why I always recommend my book. Carrying his voice is everything. And when you hear your creator's voice and he gives you a direction, you're on the road to get out of debt and step into prosperity. So maybe the first prayer isn't God send me more money. Maybe it's Father's show me the good I can pursue with what you've already put in my hand. Then get up and go plan it. That's real wisdom at work.
So in closing, Proverbs eleven twenty seven isn't really about being a nice person so good things happen to you, it's about direction. What you spend your life pursuing eventually becomes a place you arrive at, whether that's favor or whether it's a pit of your own digging. So I'd ask you, are you chasing the harvest right now or are you learning how to farm? And what would it look like this week for you to sharpen your axe instead of chasing the crown? I spent so many years trying to figure out how to get the harvest when God was actually teaching me how to become a farmer. Well, that's it for this week. I play your I pray that you're blessed, that you share this with somebody, and as always, like and subscribe, and I'll see you next week. God bless everyone.
