I sunk my head onto the steering wheel in the parking lot as I listened, for the second time in a year, to a mother weeping on the phone as she tells me that her son has been arrested. She’s crying out to God to give her wisdom and to change her son’s heart.
Proverbs 10:1, “A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son, heartache to his mother.”
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and discipline.
– Proverbs 1:7
As a child, I memorized that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But to this day if you had asked me to complete the verse, I wouldn’t be able to. As I’ve matured in my faith and spent more time in Scripture, I have found several places in Scripture where this is true.
Fools despise wisdom and discipline. This truth may have been more important for little kid Renae to grasp than knowing the origin of knowledge. I was definitely disciplined on earth much more 12 years ago than I am today.
Let’s couple this well-known verse with another one a mere 15 verses later:
How long, foolish ones, will you love ignorance? How long will you mockers enjoy mocking and you fools hate knowledge?
– Proverbs 1:22
What do you hate?
Hate is a strong word, but I would probably find several items to list in this category. I hate: live insects in my house, eating breakfast without orange juice, all things tomatoes except for ketchup, and using the stall without toilet paper.
My quick response of things that I hate revolve around earthly concerns – my comfort and preferences.
The one who trusts in himself is a fool, but one who walks in wisdom will be safe.
– Proverbs 28:26
Who are three people in your life that you trust? Who was included in that list – a spouse, employer, friend, pastor?
Did you list yourself?
A wise man is cautious and turns from evil…a man’s own foolishness leads him astray.
– Proverbs 14:6a & 19:3a
When I think about Jesus’ call on our life to enter in the narrow gate and avoid the broad path that leads to destruction (Matthew 7), I congratulate myself for choosing the narrow path when I was seven. Once on the narrow path, always on the narrow path…right?
As I continue to follow Christ into adulthood, I am learning that every decision I make creates a new path in my life. But this metaphorical narrow path has exit signs every two minutes or so inviting me to inadvertently merge onto the broad path.
Proverbs instructs us that a wise man turns away from evil whereas a foolish man turns toward it and is led astray. Vague definitions and descriptions of “evil” create barriers for us to reflect on this warning personally. We tend to think, “Of course I’m not running toward EVIL!”
“You make me so…so…ANGRY!! *laughter* I’m angry!”My mother’s favorite quote from Enchanted comes from this video clip where Giselle experiences anger in the real world for the first time. In her animated world, anger doesn’t exist as one of her emotions.
Unfortunately, you and I don’t live in the angry-free 2-dimensional world of talking chipmunks either. We face daily situations that rattle us to the core, raising our blood pressure as well as the volume of our voices.
The book of Proverbs has a multitude of verses on anger, but we’ll focus on just two that relate anger with foolishness
Copyright © 2013. Pedestrian God Ministires
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