I read a bit more in Proverbs this morning and came upon some wonderful nuggets on wisdom. Don't worry, I'm not going to wear the topic out but I can't let it go quite yet. Here are a few of the things I saw that DEFINE wisdom and give us a little bit of rubber to meet the road with.
We begin wisdom with fearing the Lord. Wise people store up knowledge, in other words, they don't just listen like the Charlie Brown cartoon characters listen to their teacher "blah, blah blah blah blah" but they LISTEN and the RETAIN and they put into practice. "He who KEEPS instruction refuses to go astray."Yep, if you hear it, retain it, keep it and DO it, your going astray stuff will cease. Heres a good one I know that I can often use! "He who restrains his lips is wise, in a multitude of words sin is not lacking"...(more on this one in a minute) "whoever loves instruction loves knowledge but he who hates correction is stupid!" (love that!)
And finally, the one I based todays card on...
A man is not established by wickedness but the root of the righteous cannot be moved!
As I made the card I kept thinking...be rooted, be solid, be like the shore pines that grow along the beaches here and withstand strong winds and storms. They send their roots deep into the soil and hang on when they are pushed and pulled at and they are the toughest trees I think I have ever seen. I thought about the tree that sits in our church parking lot and although it is this majestically huge tree and "seems" old, it isn't old at all and it isn't all that strong. The roots are very shallow and make big humps in the ground around the parking lot. It goes for the easy water, the easy nutrition instead of digging deep down in the soil for sustenance it shoots all kinds of roots along the top part of the ground. It grows really fast and therefore is prone to cracking and breaking and therefore rotting can exist in the middle of that tree.
I wonder how many times I have equated speedy growth with depth? How many times in my life did I hear something and think WOW, now that is great! Only to forget about it when a small maelstrom hit my life...Its easy to be on fire, its not so easy when things don't go the way we planned or want them to go. I KNOW that when times are hard, we have a great opportunity to see how deep our roots lie. How do we handle the things that are unpleasant? What do we do with the tough stuff? What we do with it is something that speaks volumes to the people around us about the condition of our root system.
And now just a little word about the lip restraining verse! I love this verse! It is very convicting and very life giving and I think I love it because it feels like it has a teeny bit of humor in it. Can you just see yourself talking talking talking and in the process sinning sinning sinning? I can! No, that isn't funny but how it is phrased just kind of cracks me up. "In a multitude of words, sin is not lacking" SO DANG TRUE! I have a little story to tell about this one.
Some years ago I had a job that was on one hand very great and on the other extremely challenging. I often stepped in "it" and managed to get myself in hot water on more than one occasion. On the final time I was called upon the carpet for my words and my actions, I knew I was under some persecution and knew I had not necessarily done all of what I was being accused of. I began to talk to the Lord about this and to plan my defense with the person in power and ask the Lord what I was to say in my defense and in order to protect my reputation and my pride. As I prayed about it and as I worked to humble my poor little embarrassed heart I heard the Lord say to me "when you go before her, say nothing in your defense, admit anything you need to admit but do not open your mouth to defend yourself or explain yourself." Now if you knew me, I didn't want to do that, after all I felt I was being unjustly accused, but I plainly heard the Lord say, stay quiet and say only a little bit." I was called into her office and she proceeded to bring the charges against me. I listened quietly, took account of them and when she asked me specifically about the couple that there were, I answered honestly and briefly. "yes, I did that" I did not try to protect myself and I did not try to defend myself or explain my actions. As I did it though a funny thing happened. All of her anger, all of her gutted up righteous indignation at what she saw was a slight to her cause was dissolved and she had no reply. After all, what do you say when you are accusing someone and they look you in the eye and admit without any "buts" following the admission? The wind was out of her sails and she looked at me, blinked a few times and asked me about my summer plans! Now I know that if I would have launched into this wordy dialog I would have eventually found myself in a place of sinning and would have ended up looking worse in that situation than I already did. I left with my integrity and my honor intact.
Be Rooted in Wisdom:
1 comment:
Totally awesome and so very, very true!!
Cute, cute, CUTE card my friend!!
Post a Comment