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Proverbs 30:9 · World English Bible

Proverbs 30:9 Meaning Lest I Be Full

lest I be full, deny you, and say, ‘Who is Yahweh?’ or lest I be poor, and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

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What does Proverbs 30:9 mean?

A mind praying to be spared both plenty and want has seen how each extreme feeds the same forgetting. Fullness lets the ego imagine it needs no Source and can deny that love was ever given, and lack drives it to grasp and to bend the holy toward its own ends.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 30:9 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

A mind praying to be spared both plenty and want has seen how each extreme feeds the same forgetting. Fullness lets the ego imagine it needs no Source and can deny that love was ever given, and lack drives it to grasp and to bend the holy toward its own ends. Between these the prayer asks only for enough, the quiet middle where a self stops leaning on outer conditions to tell it who it is.

What is really being asked for is steadiness of remembering. The world's swings up and down cannot decide a mind's peace, and the one who no longer looks to abundance or scarcity to define him is free to keep his Creator gently in view.

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 30:9 today

  1. On a good day, say thanks out loud for something small. Comfort quietly convinces us we did it all ourselves.
  2. When money or status comes up with a friend today, resist both bragging and pleading poverty. Just be a person talking.
  3. In a week that swings between wins and setbacks, keep one small thing exactly the same, a walk, a quiet ten minutes, the same bedtime. Let your steadiness come from there instead of from the scoreboard.

Do I let a good day or a bad day decide who I am?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching 9

Fill a cup to the brim and it spills. Sharpen a blade too far and it dulls. The middle is where things hold.

Buddhism · the Middle Way

The Buddha tried indulgence and then severe deprivation, and found that neither one woke him up. The path ran between them.

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

Fortune's gifts and losses both come and go without consulting you, so do not let either one tell you who you are. The steady part of you is elsewhere.

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