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The past two devotionals touched on the issue of misapplication of wisdom, due to “lack of understanding and readiness”. Today’s article will deal with misapplication to the “wrong situation”. The lack of understanding could also lead someone to misapply wisdom to the wrong situation, but that is not deliberate. We are dealing with the deliberate misapplication to the wrong situation today.

I quote the story here for the sake of those who are new.

“In a conversation with a computer hardware shop owner recently, he shared bitter experiences of how people bought his merchandise on credit, or borrowed money from him, but failed to pay.

Thinking his business could be in trouble, I advised him to try and stay clear off his business when lending to people. That way he could, at the least, keep his business running, and continue to lend his profit to the people.

I later purchased some of his stuff; and when I asked him to give me discounts on the items, he decided to quote my words back to me saying,

‘You told me not to give business money to anyone.’

I had to remind him, that I was not borrowing from him or buying on credit. I was simply asking for a discount; or negotiating.

He had totally misapplied the advice and wisdom I was sharing with him.

I have seen this so many times, but he was the first to overtly quote back my own words to me.”

Based on the story above, I decided to write on some of the pitfalls that lead to misapplication.

READ 2 Samuel 11:14-21

 “In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die.” So it was, while Joab besieged the city, that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men. Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the people of the servants of David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also.

Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war, and charged the messenger, saying, “When you have finished telling the matters of the war to the king, if it happens that the king’s wrath rises, and he says to you: ‘Why did you approach so near to the city when you fought? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?  Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman who cast a piece of a millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go near the wall?’—then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’ ” (2 Samuel 11:14-21)

Beyond understanding and readiness, we also need to be have the right situation to be able to effectively apply wisdom shared with us. Without the right situation, you will probably understand what the wisdom is about and be ready to apply it, but still misapply it. Situation refers to time, place and circumstances.

In the text we just read, David used the wisdom God gave him for warfare to kill Uriah, one of his men, and take his wife!

The background to this story is that, at the time when kings go to war, David decided to stay back in Jerusalem. He sent Joab instead. Then while walking on his roof one evening, he saw a  beautiful woman bathing. Although he was warned that the woman was the wife of Uriah(one of his soldiers), he still went ahead and had an affair with her; and she conceived. When David realized she was pregnant, he decided to trap the Uriah to come and be with her. When that failed, he decided to kill Uriah by getting him placed at the forefront of the war.(2 Samuel 11:1-13) What unfolded was what we just read in the text.

God would later send the prophet Nathan to confront David for the evil he did.(2 Samuel 12)

Saying people misapply the wisdom and intelligence they have to the wrong situations, in order to achieve selfish ambitions, would sound very trite. This is because it has become normal for bosses to use the information they have about how desperate a prospective hire is, to exploit him or her; or for procurement teams to pass on confidential information they gathered about other bidders to their accomplices participating in the bidding process; or for employees to use their knowledge of the inner workings of the systems to delay processes so that they could exact douceurs; or for officials to use their knowledge of systems to connive with rent-seekers and divert resources meant for social amenities and services; or for men of God to exploit information about their congregants for selfish gains, pleasure and self-gratification.

The most dangerous misapplication of wisdom to a situation, in my opinion, is when you misapply the salvation, mercy and saving grace of God to situations you know are for personal pleasure and gains!

God had some very strong words for David for what he did. These are the words in the New King James Version:

“Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’ ” (2 Samuel 12:10-12)

It is a sin to misapply any form of wisdom for selfish gains; but very dangerous when we misapply God’s grace, mercy, salvation and gifts to situations that bring us  selfish gains and  self-gratification.

MEMORY VERSE

 “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” (James 4:17)

QUESTIONS

1. Have you found yourself misapplying wisdom gained for self-gratification and pleasure?

2. If yes, why not ask God forgiveness and start doing the right thing?

PRAYER TIP

God Almighty, please help us to apply the wisdom you give us to the right situations; to build up, encourage, and support one another.

Written by:

BENNY MALM

For:

TESTIMONY DEVOTIONAL