Proverbs 20:5

This proverb uses the image of a deep well to describe the inner life of a person. Just as water lies far beneath the surface and requires effort and the right tools to reach, the true desires, motivations, and purposes inside a person's heart are not easily seen — not even by the person themselves. A 'man of understanding' — someone with genuine wisdom and attentiveness — has the skill and patience to ask the right questions and draw out what is really going on beneath the surface, whether in themselves or in someone else. The proverb honors the rare gift of people who don't settle for surface-level answers.

God, you know my depths far better than I do. Give me the courage to look honestly beneath the surface of my own heart, and the patience to do the same for others. Draw out what is true in me, even when I'd rather keep it buried. Amen.

Have you ever been in a conversation where someone asked you exactly the right question — and you heard yourself say something true that you didn't know you believed until that moment? That's this proverb alive. Most of us carry an enormous gap between what we think we want and what we actually want. We say we want peace but keep manufacturing conflict. We say we want rest but fill every silence with something loud. The real motivations live deep down, in water you can't see from the rim of the well. The rare gift of a person with genuine understanding is that they don't accept the first answer. They ask a follow-up. They sit in silence long enough for something real to surface. They're not afraid of depth. You can be that person for someone in your life — the one who doesn't rush past 'I'm fine.' And you can invite God into your own deep water too. The Psalms are full of David doing exactly that — wrestling aloud, on paper, with what's actually going on inside him. What would it look like for you to stop skimming the surface of your own heart and let something true come up?