Proverbs 31:4

The final chapter of Proverbs includes a section called 'the words of King Lemuel' — wisdom his mother gave him. Lemuel may be a symbolic name or a lesser-known foreign king; the Bible doesn't tell us much about him. His mother's counsel here is blunt: kings and rulers have no business craving wine and beer. The very next verse explains why — those in power who drink risk forgetting the laws they're supposed to uphold and failing to defend the rights of vulnerable people who depend on their judgment. This isn't a universal statement about alcohol for all people; it's about the specific, sober weight of responsibility that accompanies power and influence over others.

Lord, remind me that my choices ripple out further than I usually stop to consider. Give me the humility to take seriously the influence you've placed in my hands. I don't want to be careless with it. Help me be the kind of person that the people depending on me can truly count on. Amen.

King Lemuel's mother didn't mince words. She'd presumably watched what happened when powerful men blurred into their appetites — how they forgot whose lives depended on their clear thinking, how they made decisions in a fog that crushed the people who had no power to protect themselves from the fallout. Her warning wasn't about sobriety as a virtue for its own sake. It was about the downstream cost of one person's impairment on people with no voice. You may not wear a crown. But you have influence — over your children, your employees, your team, your friends — people shaped by the quality of your judgment and the steadiness of your character. Lemuel's mother was really asking: who is counting on you to be clear-headed? Who pays the price when you're not? Responsibility is the shadow that follows every kind of power. The question she presses isn't primarily about what you're drinking — it's about whether you're taking seriously who needs you to be fully present and fully yourself.