Just Enough

O God, I beg two favors from you;

let me have them before I die.

First, help me never to tell a lie.

Second, give me neither poverty nor riches!

Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.

For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?”

And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name. Proverbs 30:7-9

CHAPTER 30 contains the only prayer in the entire book of Proverbs and comes under the heading, “The sayings of Agur son of Jakeh.” Agur’s prayer demonstrates a wise way to pray for our child’s future, though it certainly cuts against the grain of the American dream.

Agur’s goal in life was to never go broke and never get rich. Why? Because both would make him vulnerable to temptation —the temptation to become blind to his need for God and the temptation to dishonor God by stealing from others out of fear that the Lord would not take care of him. Agur wanted to live month to month in constant dependence on God, doing as much good with his money as he could.

Our materialistic culture —with its offers of easy credit, its commercials designed to create dissatisfaction with what we have, and its barrage of newer, better, bigger —does not set our children up for success when it comes to making wise financial decisions. Our kids, therefore, need their financial lives shaped by Scripture’s perspective on money. They need to see Mom and Dad living in glad dependence upon God rather than in constant pursuit of saving or spending more. There’s a reason that Paul says that “people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9). Wealth is a gift of God, but it also can prove dangerous to the soul.

O God, I beg two favors from you;

let ________ have them before he dies.

First, help ________ never to tell a lie.

Second, give ________ neither poverty nor riches!

Give ________ just enough to satisfy his needs.

Don’t let ________ deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?”

Instead, let ________ glorify your holy name.