Proverbs 15:23 Doubly blessed!

To make an apt answer is a joy to a man,

    and a word in season, how good it is! (Proverbs 15:23)

Has someone ever helped you by giving you the exact word of encouragement that you needed at the exact time? It’s such a wonderful blessing - for both the encourager and the encouraged. I’ve been on both the giving and the receiving end of an “apt answer,” and you know when it happens that it is a God thing.

When I read this verse this morning, I immediately thought of my daughter, Molly. Her prayer card business/ministry is all about giving out the right Word for the right moment. Throne of Grace produces prayer cards and prayer journals with the goal of helping people find the exact words from God’s Word for the exact occasion in order to encourage people.

When Molly first started this business, the number one benefit she received from it was the implanting of God’s Word in her heart. As she searched for just the right verses for people to use for prayer in specific situations, she found that she was committing all of these great verses to memory as she printed them on cards. A friend would call her for advice, and she had the exact verse on her tongue for her friend, because she had just been searching the Scriptures.

Jon Courson pulls out a verse from Isaiah 50, a messianic passage, to go with this Proverb:

The Lord God has given me

    the tongue of those who are taught,

that I may know how to sustain with a word

    him who is weary.

Morning by morning he awakens;

    he awakens my ear

    to hear as those who are taught. (Isaiah 50:4 ESV)

Courson points out that Jesus got up very early to commune with His Father that He might be prepared to minister throughout the day, and he writes, “How much more do you and I need to get up and seek the Lord if we want to be those who have the right word at the right time to say to a world burdened down and burned-out by sin.” (Courson, Application Commentary: Old Testament, Vol 2, P. 224)

If ever the world needed an encouraging word it is now! We are living in a time of such discouragement. We know people all around us who are losing jobs, losing homes, struggling in their marriages, fighting cancer, grieving over loss, or just plain worn out! More than ever, we need to heed Peter’s exhortation:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (1 Peter 3:15)

Peter tells us to do this gently and with respect. How can we be prepared? We need to be prayed up, studied up, and read up! As we continue to meet Him in the morning, with our Bibles opened, praying for and waiting for a Word from Him, He will prepare us to use what He’s given. Look for an opportunity to encourage someone with God’s Word today. You will both be blessed!