Read Proverbs 4
It’s
Proverbs. It’s chapter 4. It’s wisdom again and not for the last time.
Once again
Solomon and Lady Wisdom offer to guide us in God’s way and keep us on
course. That’s the thing. We might walk in God’s way one day and wake
up and wander down the wrong path the next.
Staying the
course, pressing on towards the goal, and hitting the target set for us by
wisdom take daily effort. It’s not something
we do once and everything falls into place thereafter.
Let’s start
with guard your hearts. Keep God’s words
in your heart. Internalize them. I know that you already know two key
scriptures from Proverbs.
These are
yours and yours to keep. So keep them
and others in your hearts and in your minds.
Make them part of who you are.
Keep wisdom close to your heart so that it never leaves you.
Let’s look
at our speech. Words matter. This is more than don’t use cuss words or God’s
name in vain. This is don’t speak
discouragement when encouragement is required.
Don’t speak as a person with no hope when we are people
of hope.
Understand
and believe that with
God all things are
possible. That family that has never responded to the
call to repent and believe the good news, might just make that commitment
today.
The people
who always complain about everything, might just start to see the blessings all
around them.
Consider the
difference between waking up to, “guess I’ve gotta read my verse” and “the
best part of waking up is another helping of God’s word.”
Our thoughts
matter. Our words matter. Every thought that is not taken captive and made
obedient to Christ is subject to escaping as perverse or wicked language.
How do you
work on this? How do you get to Carnegie
Hall? The answer is the same.
Practice.
Practice. Practice.
So that’s
guarding our hearts and taking care with our words. Let’s consider our eyes. Where is our focus? What’s in our sights?
We know to
keep our
eyes fixed on Jesus. We can’t really
see him seated at the right hand of the Father so we keep our focus on what he
taught us.
Once upon a
time, I went to evasive driving school.
It was a fun week of driving fast, driving faster, learning how to steal
a car, ram a car, and just useful things that every growing boy needs to know.
One of the
drills we did was called swerve to avoid. Orange cones were put down the middle
of the track. You approached them
head-on at about sixty miles per hour.
At the last minute, the instructor who was seated in the passenger seat
would say right or left.
You braked a
little and then swerved to the prescribed direction and then back through the
cones on the right and then on the left.
If you
looked at the cones, you hit the cones.
You had to focus on the space between. As soon as you were on target between
the cones, you had to acquire the next space between and make the car go
there. By this time, you a doing about
35 mph, but that’s still fast enough that if you look at the cones, you hit the
cones.
Focus was
key. Focus is key.
Now we come
to the feet. Really? Yes. Each step counts.
I can look
at a golfer and tell you where his shot is going, excepting shots from a trap
or bunker where stances vary.
Look at
their feet. Lay a club down at their
feet so it just touches the toes. Where
it points is the likely path of the ball to be hit.
Our heart,
our speech, our eyes, and even our feet are given instructions. Stay the course. Press on towards the goal. In this morning’s context, the goal is
wisdom.
Now let’s
put them all together. In marksmanship,
if you want to hit the target you need focus—sight alignment and sight
picture. You need to block out
distractions—your heart and mind must be given to the present task of hitting
the target.
And, your
body must be perfectly aligned. In the
prone position—that’s lying flat on the ground, you need to sight in on your
target and then close your eyes. Then a
moment later open your eyes. If you are
not still on the target, then your body is not properly aligned. Your body will shift the focus of your eyes.
You have to
adjust and do this drill again until the sight picture is the same after you
open your eyes as it was before you closed them.
In
qualifying with the service rifle, I had to shoot 10 rounds in 60 seconds. That doesn’t sound too hard, unless you actually
want to hit the target. Throw out all
the Hollywood scenes of spraying the area with a hundred bullets in a few
seconds. That’s Hollywood and nowhere
near reality.
It’s
different if you want to hit your target, but I didn’t want to hit the
target. I wanted to hit the bullseye of
the target, so in this rapid-fire drill, I would get into the prone position,
sight in, then close my eyes and open them to make sure that my body was properly
aligned. If it was, I began firing.
Halfway
through, I had to change magazines. That
took my eye off of the target momentarily so I had to repeat my body alignment
drill to make sure that my body was properly aligned. When it was, I continued firing.
Remember, I wanted
to do more than hit the target. I wanted all 10 rounds in the bullseye. To do
that, my entire body had to be aligned.
Do you know
what it’s called when you miss the target?
Transgression. Today, we use that
word and sin as synonyms. To miss the
mark is to sin.
If you want
to hit dead center, your heart, mind, eyes, speech, and body need to be in
synch.
If you don’t
want to miss—to swerve—left or right, then everything that you are needs to
focus on hitting dead center in the target.
If you want
to please God then live by his wisdom.
Wisdom is not a casual affair. It
requires focus—heart, mind, body, soul—to hit dead center.
Amen.
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