The Prepper Broadcasting Network - 2026.03.24 - Reliance - Ask For Wisdom

Episode Date: March 29, 2026

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If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. Lord, we bless you. We worship your holy name. Jesus, you are good, and your mercy endures forever. Lord, you have placed us here and at this time for such a time as this, in this generation, purposefully, and with a plan. wrought before the foundations of the earth.

Lord, you have in your providence decreed that we should be here and that our lives should bear fruit, Lord, for your kingdom, for the sake of others, and for the sake of the glory of your great name. Jesus, we thank you. We praise you. We honor you. All good and perfect gifts come from you. And Lord, we are seeking you today for the gift of wisdom.

Holy Spirit, be with us and equip us with this gifting. Give us wise hearts, wise eyes, wise minds, wise souls. Help us to know what to do in every circumstance. Help us to begin by seeking you the source of all wisdom. help us to reflect and to remember and to do so properly, Holy Spirit, at your leading. Lord, help us to be still before you so that we could hear your still small voice, so that we can receive from you what you want to provide for us. Lord, you know our hearts. You know our sinful condition. You know our shortcomings. You know that

everything that we have is from you and for you. Lord, you are the author and the finisher of our faith. You have given us exceeding great and precious promises. You have not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and of a sound mind. God establish us in your wisdom. Use our lives so that your wisdom can spread. Holy Spirit, us with these giftings. We are asking and seeking, not that we should use them on ourselves, not that we should heap up rewards. Lord, but that we should bear fruit for your kingdom, that we should store up treasures in heaven, that we would know you better and more completely, that we would receive a hunger for your word that is characteristic of the wise,

that we would be able to identify the true sources of wisdom, that we would know and have discernment and perception and clear thinking. Lord, you called us. You are leading us. You will guide us. You will protect us. Because, Lord, it's all for your glory and all for the glory of the name of Jesus. God, we worship you.

We thank you. We praise you. you have done so much and been so good and God there is a cry coming out of this generation that does not know what to do does not know where to go does not know who to trust does not know where to look God help them see in a moment of clarity where they should look that they should look to you draw them unto you lord establish people in their lives who will point them in the right direction. Use us, Lord, however you would like to do so. God, it is a difficult thing to say, but by any means necessary, move in this generation. Whatever it takes, Lord, whatever it takes.

Help us to be wise in light of eternity. Help us to use our days properly. Help us to have the right attitude in our hearts. Help us to always be oriented with love to you and to our neighbor. God, help us to fulfill what you have called us to. Help us to complete the days of our lives in service of the purposes you have established for us. Help us, Lord, to be wise, spirit of wisdom, pour into us so that we can pour into others and point them towards you, the source of of all wisdom. We bless you, God, and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. So why do we need wisdom? At one level, it goes without saying. But it's worth exploring a little bit, because at the end of the day, we have this kind of practical understanding that, yeah, we want wisdom, we want to know what is the

right thing to do, what are the wrong things to do, how do we make. the distinction, how do we teach others, how do we have an understanding of how to operate in this world that we are thrown into. But there's another aspect that I think is critical in our understanding. The Word of God instructs us, not just in how to get wisdom, but it commands us to be wise. The Word of God commands us to have wisdom because it is a gift that is accessible to all and indispensable for the life of faith. We need to have wisdom so that we can receive from the Word of God the daily bread and the nourishment that our Spirit needs. We need to have wisdom to know where to look in different circumstances. We need to have wisdom to know that we need wisdom.

There's a fundamental starting place there that is in the verse that we read at the beginning from James 1. It's verse 5 from James 1. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. It seems like such a clear, and obvious promise such a potent and powerful thing to apprehend and to lay hold of. But note the catch. If any of you lacks wisdom, we have to be able to see ourselves as lacking wisdom so that this verse will properly apply to us. and it should be easier now more than ever to fully and wholeheartedly say,

God, I am lacking wisdom. I need wisdom to know what to do, to know how to think, to know how to operate. I don't have this under control. I don't have a perfect plan. But I know you and I know that your word is true. And so I declare, Lord before you, that I lack wisdom. I lack the wisdom that I need to make decisions for myself. I lack the wisdom that I need to make decisions for my family.

And this wisdom isn't simply the Carpe DM self-assured type of guidance and aphoristic advice that is dished out ad nauseum by content algorithms on the internet. where people will bathe themselves in this kind of self-improvement philosophy on all the different versions that it takes and then don't actually end up applying it in their lives. I am thoroughly convinced that genuine wisdom must be practical in order for it to be considered wisdom at all. There is an intellectual gifting and a talent that people have,

there is conceptual clarity that can be achieved, but if all that precision, all that clarity, all that knowledge doesn't actually have an impact on our lives, then from my standpoint, that is not the kind of wisdom that we are being called to generate. That is not the kind of wisdom that we are being called to receive. That is not true wisdom. because if we have all of this knowledge and all of this perspective and all of these facts about the world and how it works and what the priorities are and what things should be looking like and where they're going wrong and everything else like that, how is that functionally translating into the way that we behave in a proper fashion. that is, from my view, one of the core tenets of wisdom is how do we go from a discordant and confused and often challenging array of different ideas and fact patterns and situations into, well, how is this going to play out in my life? How do I make better decisions as a result of this?

not just in terms of what to believe about the world, but what to do, how to respond, how we should be focused on different spheres of influence that we have. There is so much that can get lost when we are caught up in the minutiae of different things, operating under the premise that one additional modicum of understanding, one piece of inside knowledge, or a special take,

or some kind of crumb of nuance that has not been observed is suddenly going to break open the dam of our own understanding and lead to drastic amounts of change in the world. We sort of feast after these things and seek after them

as if they are the keys that are going to unlock something incredible, something important, something powerful. The truth is that a variety of different, pieces of information, approaches to life, knowledge about the world have been available and are available and are readily waiting to be consumed. But do they change lives in ways that matter? Do they have the kind of impact that true wisdom is characterized by? I would argue that for most

people, the answer is no. So the question is how seriously are we going to take this command, this invective, this order to be wise and to receive wisdom? First, we have to begin with acknowledging that we lack wisdom. And as I said before, how easy it should be to make that admission in today's day and age. When you look at the changes that are being wrought by technology, the uncertainty that is being established as various institutions that have served as pillars of our society are undermined, either tacitly in confidence or abruptly and in an outspoken way by parties on all signs. When you see this, how do we know what five years will look like? How do we know what 10 years from now will look like? How do we know what three generations now in the future will look

like should the Lord Terry? I don't. I have absolutely no idea. And everything is on the table and everyone who's talking about it has an agenda. And so it's difficult to separate what the true nature of the future will be in a precise estimation. And the question I would have for us is even if we had more precise knowledge, even if we knew more exactly,

then how would that translate to how we spent our time, what we did with our days, how we focused on different things, what changes would we make? And I'm not suggesting here that every single person needs to do a complex, detailed situation analysis that says, okay, well, if this is the case, then here's what I do, if that's the case, then here's what I do. If this other thing happens, then here's what I do, and therefore I'm going to assign some weights and some probabilities to these different things and say, all right, across this scope of

options, this seems like the most beneficial across the biggest field of probability. So this is a good place to start because it gives me the highest expected value. I'm not expecting that because that is a completely preposterous way of living lives. Nobody actually does that. There may be economic or behavioral models that act as if people are that way. But that's not who people are. That's not the right way to proceed through things. Because even at that level, let's say we were able to assess the situations perfectly. We still have to make assumptions about the probabilities. And then we have to do the math right. And then we have to consider completeness. Did we consider all different possible scenarios? And very quickly, you'll realize that this problem becomes

intractable. There is no way to say, all right, based on the prospective future outcomes, here is the right thing to do because in any account, it's probabilistic. Here's what's the best thing to do in this case. Here's what's the best thing to do in this case. And it may not be that one situation that you're making now, one decision that you're coming to grips with, is going to be the universal best option. And so you have to consider a wide variety of different pathways. And that's just too much. It's not that it is too much for people to handle intellectually. If we dedicated enough time, we could really think it out, we could really plan on it, but it's completely and utterly impractical. And it carries with it the hubris of the intellectual

traditions that say we can analyze this and we can use our analysis of the past and of rational structures in order to make predictions about the future. There are many different trajectories that have demonstrated quite conclusively that that is not the case. And even now in the academic field of economics, extraordinarily influential and noteworthy Nobel laureates and many people are just now coming to grips, and by just now in intellectual traditions, I mean, within the past decade. Coming to grips with the fact that the way that the macro economy has been modeled is just woefully insufficient at dealing with the most important kind of situations that come up, namely crises, how they're handled, how long they last. Our general macroeconomic modeling is just not

equipped to handle this. It is performed incredibly poorly at predicting things, at understanding them, even post facto performing different analyses. And so, I'm not saying that all of these tools should be perpetually abandoned. What I am saying is that true wisdom is something simpler than all of this. And it doesn't rise to this level of sophistication that would enable us to claim it as our own and say, look at what I have solved, look at what I have figured out. What we need to say, simply put, is we lack wisdom. We don't know how to translate a set of potential outcomes into, well, what's the best decision now? We can hardly even handle that for one conversation that has relatively low stakes, let alone what is going on at a global scale.

I am the father of young children. I don't know which interactions they have with me they will remember for the rest of their lives. they're getting to a formative age where that is possible. My oldest is six and a half. There are things that could happen to her as a result of casual conversations with me, some of which could stick and be formative for many years and even decades to come.

Some of these things could be anchor points and other things will just vanish from her consciousness entirely. And so in the context of a conversation, I can't in advance even know the stakes of that, the stakes of one word. And so in something as direct and as immediate as that, I have to acknowledge that I don't have sufficient wisdom. I can't plan these things out.

It is my responsibility, but it is not in my control. And that is the key distinction. Some of us squander our effort and our wisdom on things that are not under our control. Some of us put tremendous amounts of effort into things that are either irrelevant or self-sabotaging. But leaving that aside, the things that are under our purview, the things that we are responsible for, in many cases, those are out of our control as well. And that puts us in this extraordinarily precarious position where we do not have the structural faculties to properly evaluate the situations that we are responsible for and yet we are responsible for them. And there are several things that you can take away from this.

Number one, one attitude is to say, that's not fair. If I am not in sufficient control, then how can it be said that I have made a morally wrong or improper or disobedient decision over something I'm responsible for? How could I be responsible for something that I don't actually have full control over? And yet that doesn't seem to be a proper objection, because it seems very clear that we are extremely willing to hold other people responsible. and culpable for things that they were not entirely in control over. And any time two or more people are involved, there is an extent of free agents interacting that we can have potentially some influence over, but not full control.

I still don't subscribe to compatibilism or determinism or other things like that. But in that kind of structure, how could we have any responsibility at all? It's, in my view, extraordinarily hand-waving to say, well, we have the illusion of freedom and we still have moral culpability, and it's just that by some unknown type of relationship, we are not free to make our own choices,

but we are responsible for those choices. We can't just define that problem out of existence. It's a non-starter and it's self-defeating at the end of the day. But that's not what this chat is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about the nature of wisdom itself and why it should be so easy for us to say, I'd lack wisdom, not just in these grandiose things, but in the day-to-day affairs of our everyday life. And we've all experienced this in that when we have spoken in a flip-a-old, way or not paid attention to the right thing for any number of different reasons.

And then we realize there's a cost or a consequence to be paid for that, for not noticing something, for not saying the appropriate thing at the appropriate time. And we can either choose to become bitter about that. We can deflect that kind of accusation and foisted on someone else's responsibility. But that's not wise either. That's not the way that we are supposed to behave. So then how do you square this dichotomy of us being responsible for things that are out of our control? Again, one way to handle it is to just decry it as unfair or to sort of disengage with our responsibility.

But that doesn't seem productive. It certainly doesn't seem helpful. And so what are the alternatives, if any, exist? and I would submit to you, after quite an extended preample, that the solution is quite simple. Admit that we lack wisdom, ask God for wisdom, God will give generously, and that is the promise. Is God's word faithful or not? If the answer on your behalf is no, then there's a different conversation. conversation to be had. But if the answer to that is yes, God's word is faithful, this is what God's

word says. God is not like a man that he should lie. God will be faithful in this. So what is holding us back from being given wisdom by God through the Holy Spirit? When wisdom is first mentioned in Exodus 28. The Bible speaks of people being filled with the spirit of wisdom. Throughout Proverbs, wisdom is personified. Wisdom is a spirit, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will give us wisdom, every perfect gift. We may not know what scenarios are going to come to pass, but God does.

And he stands ready, willing, able to lovingly give us the kind of insight that even if we don't understand all of the different parameters, we can end up in situations because we depended on the wisdom of God and didn't rely on our own understanding, that we find ourselves in a better spot. Sometimes we may not even recognize it retroactively, but God is still working in these cases. So what's the recipe? It's right there in James 1-5. We should declare wholeheartedly our lack of wisdom. That's the toughest part for many, but it should be extraordinarily easy.

When you have people talking about every situation from complete utopia to the total destruction of the species and everything else in between happening in the next five, ten, 20 years, and everyone shrugging their shoulders and saying, I guess that seems about right. Like we were entering into the precipice of something is the concordant zeitgeist of this entire era. All of the different changes, all of the different technological disruptions, all of the different components,

things are coming to a head. And that's what everyone agrees on. But we don't know how it's going to turn out. We don't know where it's going to go. We don't know what the situation is going to look like during or after. We don't know exactly how it's going to tip off. And so everybody is living in this kind of fight or flight mode when you're looking around at the world and saying, I don't trust the stability of anything.

And there's an incredible amount of variability in terms of what the outcomes could be. In such a situation, shouldn't it be the most straightforward thing in the world to say, yeah, I'm lacking wisdom. I don't know what the right. thing to do is here. I don't know how to plan for these things. I don't know how to position myself. But we have one. We have a savior. We have a king. We have a helper. We have a God who created us, who has called us his children, his brother, his sister, his friend, his family. Jesus, the righteous, the holy, the all-powerful, the one with the keys to hell, death, and the grave, the one who overcame it all, the one who atoned for our sins, the one who made a way for us,

the one who with a shout will raise the dead, the one who is a returning king, the one who will establish his kingdom, the one who will rule and reign forever in fulfillment of the Word of God, the one who is God, the second person of the Trinity, the eternal son. This is Jesus, our king, our Lord, our Savior, who we serve, who promised to send us a comforter, to send us a Holy Spirit. He said it would be better and it will be better that he goes to the Father because he will send us. the Holy Spirit in his place. He said that to those who walked by his side during his ministry and said, it will be better for you that I leave so that I will send you the Holy Spirit.

And so God will take up residence inside of our hearts and be with us to lead us into all truth and righteousness and judgment. If any of us lacks wisdom, and we all do, none are excluded from this, shouldn't we ask God not so that we would spend it on our own devices, but we should ask according to God's will. If James 1-5 says, let him ask God, and it will be given him, then isn't it disobedient for us to persist in our lack of wisdom,

in any area, to any extent? Note the superlative. Let him ask God who gives generously to all, without reproach. When we come to God and say, God, I'm lacking wisdom, please give me the wisdom that I need. Give me your wisdom.

Give me your guidance, your direction. God gives generously without reproach. We will not be scolded for doing so. We are not asking a miss here. We genuinely want to know what God would have us to do. And the answer to that is going to be different for each one of us in the different situations. It's going to be different one week to the next, but it will have a common undercurrent.

Obey God. Seek him. Seek his kingdom first and foremost. And at the end of the day, this is the answer to the conundrum of responsibility. God has taken that responsibility upon himself if we will turn over that responsibility to him. we absolutely do not have control over the things in our sphere of influence that we are ostensibly responsible for. Can we bring these things before God and say, God, you promise that you would give me wisdom? I acknowledge that I lack it. Lord, your word says that you do not lie, that none of your

words will return void, but that you give generously to all without reproach, and that when we ask for wisdom, it will be given to us? Will God spurn this request? To the detriment of the consistency and the glory of his own name and his own word? I dare say not. So why do we then fall into all these various traps? Why do we not follow the simple and direct and clear-cut instruction? Are we not being disobedient when we don't?

Are we not falling short when we refuse to acknowledge that we lack wisdom? If you're with me thus far, then you probably know all the answers to these rhetorical questions. You're probably excited about the prospect of lacking wisdom and then going to God and receiving what we need. Sometimes what we need might surprise us. Sometimes it might be the complete opposite, whether in degree or kind, it might be that God is asking us to focus on something that we are completely ignoring right now. It might be that there is something that is weighing us down that we need to let go of. But certainly, first and foremost, let us let us let go of any preconceived notions that we don't need

the Holy Spirit's help and the giftings of wisdom, that we are not in a position where we should be really appropriating James 1.5 in our lives. So when we bring our burdens to Jesus, when we establish that His wisdom has priority in our lives, when we are willing to say we lack wisdom, if all of us were to do that, for the sake of our families, for the sake of God's kingdom,

for the sake of those around us, for the sake of the lost world, for the sake of our communities, even for the sake of ourselves. What would happen if all of us repented for failing to ask for wisdom and ask God for the wisdom that only he can provide? What would happen in our lives? What would happen in our homes? What would happen in our schools?

What would happen in our families? What would happen in our churches? What would happen? What would happen if all of us did that? If all of us were equipped with giftings of wisdom through the Holy Spirit. What if all of us simply said, God, I believe, help my unbelief, give generously this wisdom to me without reproach. Lord, you promised that it will be given us. You promised that it will be delivered.

Well, what is the final caveat? We move on finally to verse 6. How should we ask? But let him ask in faith, with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. If we ask, not being sure if God wants to give us wisdom or can or that we're worth it or if it would be a squandering, any of the other kind of things that would hold us back, let us ask in faith, in simple childlike faith that says, God, you promised that you would give us wisdom.

Give me the wisdom that I need. We know that you will do it. hear our cry, Lord, and we repent of not asking you in the way that we should have. The best time to do that is today. The best time to do that is right now. Let us ask the Lord for wisdom, the wisdom that we need to operate in this generation, and let us ask in faith. God, your word is faithful and true. Lord, there is no shadow of turning with you. Your word will never pass away, not one jot or one tittle.

Lord, you are the source of the wisdom that we need to fulfill the callings that you have placed on our lives. Lord, we repent of not seeking you earnestly for the wisdom that we so desperately need. Lord, we repent of any pride that has stood in the way of us declaring that we lack wisdom. Lord, we repent of our faithlessness and our unbelief that for whatever reason we would not or you would not deliver us the wisdom that you have promised. Lord, we declare and affirm that your promises are true. Jesus, your word is true. You are the Word of God and you are the Holy One, the righteous one, the faithful one. God, you are the only good one.

Help us, Lord. Help us to ask for wisdom properly. Help us to have the right heart. Lord, forgive us of succumbing to shame, guilt, bitterness, confusion, fear, anger, trepidation. Forgive us for succumbing to doubt in you, in your word, in your promises, in your character. Lord, we need everything to be simple. So simplify our trajectory, simplify our words, simplify our lives. Lord, give us clean hands and pure hearts. Forgive us, Lord, wash us, cleanse us in the blood of the lamb. Jesus, help us. Help us to lift our hands and to

ask simply, God, we lack wisdom. you promised to give us wisdom that promise has never expired so lord give us wisdom holy spirit fill us with wisdom help us to make right judgments lord not for our sakes but for your sake for the sake of your name and for the sake of your kingdom Jesus be magnified and glorified for what you are doing even now, what you are going to do. Lord, move others around us to seek your face, to seek wisdom from you. Whatever obstacles are preventing us from asking properly, from being positioned in the right way to ask the right questions. Lord, it's a simple question. Lord, will you give us the wisdom that we need?

And it's a simple answer, Lord. Your word says yes. We believe it, Lord. We appropriate it. We declare your righteousness. You will not fall short of this promise. Lord, we come against anything that is preventing us from having the right attitude towards this piece of scripture and this precious, exceedingly precious promise in Jesus' name.

tear down everything that would prevent us from having the right frame of mind to simply ask in faith declaring that we lack wisdom and that you have promised to provide it. Provide it now, Lord. Give us the wisdom that we need to ask for wisdom. Help us, God. Help us. Lord, you are the one who can bring tremendous giftings of wisdom to us. And Lord, you know how much we desperately need it.

Help us, Lord. Help your people. Win a mighty victory. Transform hearts as only you can. And give us the wisdom that we need to point others to you. We bless you, Lord. We thank you for your faithfulness, Jesus. You are ruling and reigning now and forevermore.

We love you, Lord. Thank you for the wisdom. that you will provide. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Thank you, God. We bless your holy name. In Jesus' name, amen.