Sometimes I feel guilty when I look around and realize I’m prosperous, a person successful in material and financial terms. Much is written about privilege either enjoyed or lacked by those in this world, and I live on the upper side of the scale.

So it stuck me to read the psalmist pray that I may enjoy the prosperity of your chosen ones.

Should I pray for wealth and material gains? In this psalm, the writer chronicles the sins of Israel and the resulting oppression. This prayer is a cry for mercy and a return to inheritance. Here’s a plea to prosper once again under the favorable hand of the Lord.

To prosper might mean wealth, but in this case it means a close and meaningful relationship with the God who provides all we have. And we know from the rest of scripture that the Lord gives to us so that we might take care of others.

Prosperity is like peanut butter—it’s meant to be spread.

Should I pray for prosperity? Of course, if I pray for the type of prosperity graciously given from the hand of the Lord. I will benefit, and those around me will as well.

Knowing the source of our prosperity, we repeat these words with the psalmist: Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Let all the people say, “Amen!”

Amen.

Psalm 106 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Markus Winkler