Key Verse: “Do not withhold good from those who
deserve it when it’s in your power to help them.” (v.27)
Big Idea: Wisdom is revealed not by what you believe, but by the good you choose not to delay.
The morning had a sharp edge to it. Wind off the waterfront cut through my jacket as I walked toward the small park café near the pier—the one with uneven tables and gulls bold enough to steal unattended food. I was irritated before I arrived, though I couldn’t pin down why. Maybe it was the email I hadn’t answered. Maybe it was the favor I kept postponing.
Solomon sat on a bench just outside, sun breaking through low clouds and catching the silver in his tied-back hair. Linen shirt, handmade boots dusted with grit from the path. His leather notebook rested on his knee. He looked up and smiled, tapping the bench beside him.
“You’re carrying something unfinished,” he said gently.
I exhaled. “Is it that obvious?”
He chuckled. “It always is—especially to the person avoiding it.”
A cyclist coasted past us, chain clicking. Somewhere behind the café, a delivery truck hissed as it braked. Solomon opened his notebook.
“In this section,” he said, “I move from trust to action. Earlier, I talked about leaning, fearing less, resting more. Here, I ask a harder question… What do you do when you clearly see someone with a need and you could meet it?”
He sketched two hands—one clenched, one open. “This whole passage works as a unit. I mention timely generosity, honest dealings with neighbors, refusing to stir conflict, resisting envy. It’s all connected. Wisdom isn’t private—it spills outward.”
A man approached the café door nearby, hesitated, then checked his pockets with a practiced panic. He stepped aside, embarrassed. Solomon watched him quietly.
“Most people don’t withhold good because they’re cruel,” Solomon said. “They do it because they want a better moment. More certainty. Less inconvenience.”
The man turned away, shoulders tight. I felt a small sting of recognition.
Solomon leaned in. The world seemed to soften around the edges. “The line you’re focusing on—that one about withholding good—I wrote it because delay can be a form of denial. When the power to help is already in your hands, postponement hardens something inside you.”
He tapped the notebook. “The Hebrew word I used for “withhold’ carries the idea of restraint—holding back what wants to move forward. Do not “withhold” good from those who deserve it when it’s in your power to help them.”
He looked me in the eye, “Wisdom loosens the grip of self-centeredness.”
I thought of Rachel again—how she’d once dropped everything to sit with me when I didn’t know how to ask. How natural it had felt for her. How calculated it sometimes felt for me.
The woman pushing the stroller fumbled with her bag, the coffee tipping and spilling across the pavement. She froze, eyes closing for a second too long.
Before I moved, Solomon was already standing.
He crossed to the counter, spoke quietly to the barista, and returned with a fresh cup, lid on tight. He handed it to her without ceremony.
“Rough morning?” he said.
Her shoulders loosened. “You have no idea.”
She left smiling, one small crisis erased.
When he returned, Solomon’s eyes held that uncanny knowing.
“You felt it, didn’t you?” he said. “The immediate lightness.”
I nodded. It surprised me how small the act was—and how much space it cleared inside me.
“This passage ends with contrast,” Solomon continued, zooming back out. “I talk about the quiet favor that rests on the humble, and the noise that follows the proud. Wisdom doesn’t shout. It blesses. Fools chase status; the wise quietly share what they have.”
He closed the notebook and stood. “Don’t wait to be generous when it’s safer. That day rarely comes.”
He adjusted the strap of his bag, cedar scent catching briefly in the breeze. “We’ll talk again.”
Then he walked down the pier, boots thudding softly on weathered boards. His absence felt instructive—like the moment after a door closes and you realize you’re supposed to move now.
What? Wisdom calls us to act promptly and generously, refusing to delay good when we have the power to do it.
So What? In a world trained to hesitate, protect, and postpone, timely goodness reshapes both our relationships and our hearts.
Now What? Think of one specific good you’ve been delaying—an apology, help, generosity—and do it today without improving the conditions.
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