Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread. — Proverbs 30:8
“Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God” (vv. 8-9).
This verse teaches us that both wealth and poverty can tempt us to sin, to stray from God, each in its own way.
People who are rich and feel that they can fill all their worldly needs with their wealth can be led to forget about God. They run the risk of thinking that they don’t really need Him. At the other extreme, poverty often tempts people to make allowances for themselves to bend the rules, even to the point of lying and stealing, to feed themselves.
The Hebrew for “my daily bread” is literally means, “the bread allotted to me,” or “the bread decreed for me.” The word “daily” or “day” does not actually appear here at all. In other words, the answer to our spiritual challenges that come from whatever financial situation we are in is to recognize that what we have or lack is God’s will, His decree.
Every situation—riches, poverty, illness, and health—brings its own spiritual challenges. The way to face these challenges, from both extremes, is to recognize that God is the source of all we have. He chose our situation. We must embrace whatever God has allotted to us and use our situation to bring honor to Him.
