Do we truly understand our own way?

 Read Proverbs 20

 

Do this.  Don’t do that.  This action has this consequence.  This is good.  That is bad.  Wise is good.  Foolish is bad.  Better off poor than a fool or a liar. 

OK, Solomon, we get it.  Give us something more challenging.  Here we go.

A person’s steps are directed by the Lord.

    How then can anyone understand their own way?

Don’t I get to make my own decisions?  How can I not understand my own way? 

Let’s put this in the context of Proverbs 3:5-6.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

    and he will make your paths straight.

The promise of this proverb is that the Lord will direct our steps.  He will keep us on the right path. We have to trust him with our very being to realize this promise, but God will keep us on the right path.

I’m going to modify something that I have said before.  I have said that we understand our own understanding because it’s our own understanding.  Now, I should refine it to say, we think we understand our own understanding.

Here’s the dichotomy.  We don’t always understand God’s ways.  His ways are higher than our ways.  His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

But Solomon goes on and says that we really can’t understand our own ways either.  Of course, we think that we can.  They are our own ways.  How could we not understand them?

While we are creatures that think we understand almost everything in the universe; it turns out that we don’t know diddly on the big scale of things.

There is a whole scale of human wisdom that purports and I subscribe to that says the more that I know, the more I realize what I don’t know.

So, is Solomon telling us that we are all a bunch of dummies? Sort of, but not exactly.  He is saying that trust in the Lord is the only solid foundation for knowledge. For as much as we learn and understand and synthesize and think that we know, trusting the Lord to guide us is the only thing that we can know for sure.

The Lord knows the way.  Let me trust him.  He alone keeps me on the right path.

Knowledge is good.  Wisdom is good. Understanding is good. Trusting the Lord is certain.  Of all the wisdom and knowledge and expertise that we may acquire, trust governs.  If we want to stay on the right course, we must trust God completely. 

In so many ways, God directs our steps.  Will we accept his direction or rebel? 

Accept or rebel?

Live God’s way or rebel against him—there really isn’t a figure it out on your own option.  For all that we want to believe that we can figure out things on our own, we never really have complete knowledge.

We like to think that we are super smart creatures, but our true intelligence boils down to trust.  Will we walk in the way set by the Lord?

How do we know this way? By design.

The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord

    that sheds light on one’s inmost being.

Our spirit is designed to know God’s Spirit and thereby know God’s will—his steps for our life.  It’s not that we have a good chance of doing God’s will.  It’s that from the onset of creation, we have been designed to live God’s way.

I have my own personal mantra that I put forth sometimes.  It’s don’t complicate the simple.

Don’t complicate the simple.

It’s along the lines of the Law of Parsimony.  You probably know it as Ockham’s Razor. 

Our nature is to say this is what God says, but…

Solomon tells us this is what God says, now put away your other conditions.  No ifs, ands, or buts if you will.  God has already computed the consequences and sequels to what he has directed us to do.

Just do it.  God has factored in what we can and cannot understand and just told us the right answer. He has directed our steps without us having to resolve all the possible contingencies.

We are creatures who long to learn.  We long for God’s wisdom and knowledge and for understanding, but Solomon tells us that trust is what gets us through the day.  Learning to trust God is likely the wisest thing we can learn.

The only thing that we have to know and understand completely is to trust God.  Everything else will always be just a bit beyond our grasp.  It’s fun to pursue knowledge and wisdom, but the one thing that we can comprehend completely is to trust God with everything we have.

Here’s the kicker.  Solomon says that when we lean on our own understanding, we don’t really understand it anyway.  Quit fighting the Lord as he directs our paths.

A person’s steps are directed by the Lord.

    How then can anyone understand their own way?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.  It’s just that simple.

Amen.

Man in the Mirror

 Read Proverbs 20

Do you remember those dogs with the heads that bobbed up and down or side to side?  You put them in the back of the car, at least back when most cars were sedans and not some crossover or SUV. I am thinking that many of you read your chapter this week with your heads bobbing up and down in agreement.

Don’t get drunk.  It doesn’t say don’t consume any alcohol.  Jesus had wine with dinner.  Jesus made the best wine ever, but don’t get drunk.  Don’t surrender your faculties to alcohol. 

Surrender your faculties to wine or beer and make a fool of yourself.  Give in to the hard stuff, you might do something that lands you in jail.

Don’t tick off the king.  It’s the grown-up version of don’t put you finger in the fire. Decisions have consequences.

Don’t argue every point in every discussion.  You have better—purposeful things to do.  Who has time to argue every point?  The fool.  The one who lives without purpose.  The one who declares in his heart that there is no God.  This is not the first time that Solomon has warned the wise about the actions of fools.

The sluggard, aka the slothful and lazy and indolent and other derogatory terms, doesn't work in season and is surprised there is nothing to harvest.  Lazy is as lazy does.  One definition of insanity is to do the same things over and over and expect different results.

The sluggard doesn’t do any work in season and yet is surprised anew each time he has nothing to harvest.  Here is the proverb in the affirmation.  Work is good.  We are meant to work and produce fruit.  The harvest does come for the one who puts in the work.

What is the meaning of life?  It’s hardwired within us, but we have to purposefully search for it.  Seek God and you will find not only him but the purpose that he has for you.

The Lord detests differing weights.  Don’t put your thumb on the scale when you are measuring out someone’s purchase.

Don’t con someone into thinking what they are selling is worthless and then go brag about the good deal you got on the thing you told the seller was worthless.

In similar vein, food that you cheated to get tastes sweet at first, but in the end, it goes down like gravel.  No matter how much tabasco sauce you put on it, it’s still gravel.

If you want to win the war, you need good counselors.  Telling the king what he wants to hear doesn’t win battles or wars.  The truth—even in raw form—serves the decision maker better than flattery or falsehood.  If you want to be successful, seek only trusted counsel.

Don’t listen to a gossip.  Don’t have anything to do with a gossip.  They will talk about you when you are not around.  Don’t give them your ear to talk about others. 

Most of these are dog in the back of the car bobbing his head in the affirmative. 

A wise king eliminates the wicked from his presence.  They get no measure of influence in his court.

Don’t make vows rashly.  You may regret them.  Make sound decisions not hasty commitments.  Don’t let your emotions rule over your sound mind. Don’t let your human bravado supersede the path that God has set for you.

Do you remember, Vengeance is mine says the Lord?  There is a dose of that here as well.

If you are putting up security for a stranger, it is wise to get some collateral from him or her.  Don’t cosign for a loan for someone you don’t know without some collateral. 

Is this heartless?  No, it is wise.  Tell the person who needs a loan to find someone who knows them well enough to vouch for them and to cosign with them.  If they don’t have someone they know who will vouch for them, why should you?

Feed them, clothe them, and be kind to them but don’t cosign their loan. This is just more dog in the back of the car stuff.

For all of Solomon’s wisdom and guidance and counsel, it is a question that prompts us to deep thought and introspection.  His interrogative causes us to investigate ourselves.

Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure;

    I am clean and without sin”?

Do this not that.  This is better than that.  The consequences of this is that.  There has been a whole bunch of counsel that fits into the God’s way and Everything else model.

Now Solomon is saying take a look at the man in the mirror. Who can say, I have always done it God’s way?  Who can say, I have no sin? Who can say I have never ventured into the everything else?

We know these questions to be rhetorical as every heart has been stained by sin.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 

Not one of us can say that we have kept our hearts pure, but that is not the end of the story.  Like his father, David, Solomon surely knew how to get a clean heart.  It could only come through God himself.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,

    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Those were his dad’s words but they still ring true in every generation.  We can’t purify ourselves. There were purification rituals that the people observed through the time of Jesus. We know that it is the blood of Jesus that purifies us from sin.

So much has been revealed to us in our age.  We are without excuse as to seeking God and being known as disciples of Jesus by our love.  We are without excuse.

For the moment, let’s just concentrate on Solomon’s interrogative.

Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure;

    I am clean and without sin”?

Who among us can say that I have kept my heart pure?  Who among us can say that I am without sin?

When we focus on the questions in the middle of a lesson on wisdom, it should remind us that we all view God’s wisdom from the perspective of one who has sinned and who has fallen short.

We know what God is telling us through Solomon.  We have to scratch our heads every once in a while, to figure some of his quips out, but mostly they are dog in the back of the car, nodding in agreement pieces of wise counsel.

We can see how others disregard these pieces of counsel.  The lazy and the fool and the wicked are easy to spot, but we are now challenged to look at the man in the mirror.

When we do that, we disarm our tendencies to weaponize the proverbs.  We have to put away our pointing fingers.  We examine ourselves.

We use the word of God to judge the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. When we do that, we see that we still fall short again and again.  God is faithful and just to forgive, but we still fall short.

How can we as God’s people respond to his forgiveness?  We can give thanks.  We must give thanks.  If we have eyes to see how great God’s love for us is, we will give thanks.  It will seem like an involuntary action.

Our new creature that God has made us to be, will give thanks by our new nature.  We are a thankful people.

Knowing how great God’s love for us is, even when we fall short time and again, what should we do?  Let’s try a short piece of counsel from Paul.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Give thanks in all circumstances.  We have eyes to see and ears to ear that tell us we have all fallen short of the glory of God, but those same eyes and ears now see that God loves us in spite of ourselves and has called us to confess our sins and live for him.

We get another chance to live for God, again.

Knowing this, I say there is no circumstance that we will ever experience where we can not give thanks to God.  We may go through some stuff, but God’s love for us is so great that in that knowledge alone, we can give thanks in all circumstances.

Let’s learn the proverbs set before us but let us see them from the eyes of a new creature that lives to bring glory to God.  Leave the judging to the word of God that divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow.  It is the more qualified to judge.

Let us return to Solomon’s question.

Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure;

    I am clean and without sin”?

We know the answer.  All have fallen short of the glory of God, but God himself purified us from all unrighteousness in the blood of Christ Jesus. He did what we could never do.  Our response to his great love is to love him and each other with all we have, and…

To give thanks in all circumstances.

Amen.

Mammas, Don't let your Babies grow up to be Lazy

 Read Proverbs 19

In the next service, I will talk about the poor.  We need to understand that not all poor people are lazy.  Some are.  Some are not.  Counsel on the poor comes later, but for now, let’s talk about the lazy.

Laziness brings on deep sleep,

    and the shiftless go hungry.

Lazy, slothful, sluggard, and now shiftless are not compliments.  These terms are descriptive, but we might also consider them derogatory.  Nobody gains esteem by their slothfulness.

No coach ever said, “We’re not big but we’re slow.” “We don’t have much talent, but we’re lazy.”

Nobody wants to be called lazy or shiftless. What is it to be shiftless?  It’s characterized by laziness, indolence, or lack of ambition.

So, what is indolence?  It is to be characterized by lack of activity or exertion.

It is kin to the two pagan gods of this age—apathy and ambivalence.

What’s the bottom line here?  The lazy go hungry.

Solomon is not through yet. 

A sluggard buries his hand in the dish;

    he will not even bring it back to his mouth!

There is a degree of laziness that won’t even take the morsel of food from the dish to the mouth. 

Oh, life is so hard.  I don’t think I can make it.

The sluggard ignores the fact that someone had to plant, harvest, grind, prepare, and cook the dish set before him, but lifting his hand to his mouth is just too hard.

Surely this is just hyperbole.  Surely, Solomon exaggerates to make his point, but not too much.  There are people who are in this boat.  They will find a reason not to do the little required to help themselves.

They won’t fill out the paperwork to get their children the free lunch.  They won’t come to the church to get some food.  They won’t go fill out the form to get help with utility bills.

Why won’t people just do this for me?  It’s not that hard. C’mon, just fill out the form for me, deliver the food, lift the spoon from the bowl to my mouth.

This is not Solomon’s first depiction of the lazy. It’s not his first laziness rodeo.

Go to chapter 10.

Lazy hands make for poverty,

    but diligent hands bring wealth.

He who gathers crops in summer is a prudent son,

    but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.

There is more counsel in chapter 12.

Those who work their land will have abundant food,

    but those who chase fantasies have no sense.

Diligent hands will rule,

    but laziness ends in forced labor.

The list goes on and sometimes Solomon talks directly to the sluggard. .

Why is Solomon telling us this?  Surely the slothful are too lazy to read and take heed.  Why tell us?

Is it so we can walk around pointing at people saying, “Lazy” or “that one’s a sluggard” or “he’s shiftless for sure?”

No.  Why does he give us this counsel?  Why give it to those who seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness?  Why give it to those seeking God’s wisdom?

You know.  Bring up a child…

The person who is destitute because he has been lazy all of his life isn’t looking for change, at least not change in himself.  He wants you to finish the job.  Lift the spoon of food from the bowl to his mouth.  Feed him like a helpless baby. 

Don’t expect much efficacy trying to convey God’s wisdom to the lazy.  It’s kin to sharing wisdom with a fool.

But where you can make a difference is with a child.  Teach them a good work ethic.  Whether they choose to work as a professional that uses mostly their minds or one that uses their hands more than others, teach them the value of work.

You would think there would be a standard for work.  There is!

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

How do you keep your kids from becoming lazy?  Teach them that whatever they do they should do it as if they were working directly for the Lord.

If your children are disrespectful, your correct them.  If they use bad language, you correct them.  If they use bad grammar, you corre—ok, this is Oklahoma, we will skip that one.

You discipline your children because you love them.  Don’t let them fall victim to laziness.

One last footnote and we will conclude.  Rest is not laziness.  Those who work need rest.  Remember work 6 and rest 1 was not for God’s benefit but ours.

I like to say there is no Sabbath to take in a life without purpose.  Someone living out their purpose needs rest on a recurring basis.  Those without purpose—those who subscribe to laziness—do not.

Don’t confuse rest and laziness and don’t let your children learn laziness.  It’s very hard to unlearn.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Amen.

The Poor Can't buy a Friend

  Read Proverbs 19

Solomon spends some time on a dichotomy that he has only touched on briefly thus far.  It is the rich and the poor, with greater emphasis on the poor.

Have you ever heard someone say they couldn’t buy a break?  Let me abuse that figurative language a bit and say the poor can’t buy a friend.  The wealthy always have plenty of friends.  Are they true friends?  That’s still up for discussion but those with wealth have plenty of people lining up to be their friends.

The poor can’t buy a friend, pun intended. Solomon says that even the poor man’s friend deserts him.  Does that mean that if you are poor then you have no friends?

No.  It means that the worldly attraction to be someone’s friend is not there.  A real friendship can still exist, but the shallow and transient connections passed off as friendship are finished when they find out that you have no worldly wealth.

Those ego-boosting friendships will evaporate. I will steal Zac Brown’s lyrics: The senoritas don't care-o when there's no dinero.

Everyone is a friend of the gift giver.  That’s just human nature.

In a similar vein, Solomon said that a poor man is shunned by his relatives and even more by his friends.  It doesn’t matter how hard he tries; the poor man gets kicked to the curb time and again. It seems that the poor man can’t buy a friend.

I think if I was a poor person in Solomon’s day, I might be drifting towards that whole crushed spirit thing.  C’mon Solomon, give a poor man a break. He does.

He begins this chapter saying,

Better the poor whose walk is blameless

    than a fool whose lips are perverse.

It’s better to be a poor person who seeks God and his kingdom and his righteousness than a fool, who by definition declares there is no God. 

Better to be poor than a fool.

In a strange pairing of verses, we get another comparison where the poor person is better off than others.

What a person desires is unfailing love;

    better to be poor than a liar.

We get the first part, though topically, it is a tangential fit, but it is the latter half of this quip of wisdom which makes comparison with the poor.  It is better to be poor than a liar.

So we are better off being poor than being a fool or a liar.  Being poor is not desirable, but it is better than those who rebel against God.

Do you remember:

Better a dry crust with peace and quiet

    than a house full of feasting, with strife.

It’s better to eat a poor man’s meal and enjoy your family than to have everything  except peace and quiet.  God grants peace without regard to our personal financial status.  Sometimes there is liberty in having less.

This is an interesting message as it is delivered to people who are not poor.  You might be thinking, “he hasn’t seen my bank account.” The fact that you have a bank account is an indicator that you are not poor.

There are no poor people here.  Some have more than others, but none of us are poor.

When we covet the wealth of others, we may deceive ourselves into thinking we are poor, but we are wealthy in terms of the world’s population. 

We all live indoors.  Ok, some of you guys may have spent a few days out in the weather because you didn’t read the whole chapter but just kept rereading verse 13 aloud, but otherwise, we all have shelter.

We have food and water.  We have clothing.  Most of us have a vehicle or access to a ride when we need one.

We have phones and smartphones.  I can go to my son’s house and tell the refrigerator to play a song and it will.  We have a public pool in our little town and a basketball court.  There is even a golf course.  We are blessed to have public schools through grade 12 and even a technical school within our small community.  You don’t’ have to drive very far to find a college.

If anyone tells you that you are poor, they are lying to you.  Would we like to have more?  Sure.  We can seek more without being greedy and losing sight of God’s kingdom and righteousness.

Zig Ziglar said that money can’t make you happy, but everyone wants to find out for themselves.  We get that.  We might like to have more, but we are surely not poor. I remember hearing him say one time that you can get by with less money but life seems better with more.  We get it.

But do not be deceived.  You are not poor.

So why study these quips of wisdom about being poor?  Why?

Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,

    and he will reward them for what they have done.

Does the Lord need a loan?  No. Exhibiting kindness to the poor is like a loan for it will be returned, most often not by the people we help but by the Lord.

We know this thinking and mindset. Jesus said that whatever you have done for the least of these you have done for me.

We are to help the poor.  Sometimes that is with money or food or clothing or something tangible, but what did Solomon say the poor lack?

Friends.  The poor can’t buy a friend.  The poor need our friendship as much as they need money and things from us.

If we truly are a friend to someone who is poor, we don’t want to leave them where they are and we don’t want them to be reliant upon us.  We must speak the truth in love to them and show them—not just tell them—a better way.

Show them our work ethic.  Show them our husbandry.  Show them our discipleship by following the Lord and his teachings. 

Walk with them.  Tell them, I will show you how.  I will pray with you.  I will help you with your resume.  I will practice an interview with you.

But what if someone is poor because they are lazy?

A sluggard buries his hand in the dish;

    he will not even bring it back to his mouth!

You’ve got to love this language—the sluggard, the slothful, the lazy. You don’t have to worry about spending all of your time helping the poor who are poor because they are lazy.  They won’t show up.

But some people are poor and are not lazy.  They may have made bad decisions but they are trying to do better.  They want to learn.  They are poor, not fools.

We help them.  Sometimes that help is money, food, clothing, or something else that we would give out of our wealth, but often we give of our wisdom and if we stay the course here, we can count that as part of our wealth as well.  We show people how.  We help make a budget.  We help them overcome obstacles.

If they are lost, we lead them to God. 

If they are seeking God, we walk with them and follow Jesus as brothers and sisters.  What is it that the poor lack?  Friends.  We can be a friend.

We may or may not make much difference in their lives.  That might be out of our hands, but delivering kindness to the poor is well within our capabilities.

Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,

    and he will reward them for what they have done.

We should have no metrics on whether the poor pay us back or not.  The Lord will reward us.  Some will want to repay as part of their growth, but our reward is from the Lord.

Being poor is not the worst thing in the world, but all things considered, I like being blessed.  I like seeking God first and being blessed with material things. That’s win-win.

I won’t make money or wealth my god, but I will receive the Lord’s blessings with joy and thanksgiving.  The Lord wants to bless me because I seek him first.  He wants to bless me even more when I truly help the poor.

We don’t help the poor so we get more blessings.  We help the poor because we seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness, then God adds blessings to us that the godless people seek as their gods.

Money and food are helpful, but the poor have a dearth of friends.  Be a friend as well. A true friend will speak the truth in a spirit of love and walk with their friends as we follow Jesus together.

Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,

    and he will reward them for what they have done.

Be kind because we should be kind, but get ready to realize even more blessings from the Lord.  Be kind.

Amen.

The Name of the Lord is a Fortified Tower

 Read Proverbs 18

Solomon takes time to put us on our guard against many things—topics that we have visited at least once before, likely more.

The fool is displeased by knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

Wickedness keeps company with contempt, shame, and disgrace.

Are you picking sides?  Don’t choose wickedness.  It doesn’t end well.

The lips of a fool mock and bring him to strife, his undoing, and are a snare for his very soul.

Gossip is like calorie-free chocolate.  You eat all you want and then find out you gained 5 pounds anyway.  Oh, but it tasted good going down.

Laziness is kin to destruction.  Not to produce good fruit with the gifts that God gave us is the same as destroying something.

These are familiar topics:

Work and Laziness.

Right and Wrong.

Righteous and Wicked.

Wise and Foolish.

Solomon’s counsel could be regarded as practical, pragmatic, and possible.  It’s all good, put to use now stuff.  It’s tangible. It’s shop class, not algebra, right?

Then we come to verse 10.

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower;

    the righteous run to it and are safe.

It is as if we jumped out of the Proverbs and into the Psalms.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,

    my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Solomon’s dad had introduced godly people to the concept of refuge in the Lord before Solomon was born.

Truly my soul finds rest in God;

    my salvation comes from him.

Truly he is my rock and my salvation;

    he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

Probably David’s most well know psalm is Psalm 23.  This psalm tells us that we are totally in the care of our Shepherd.

It’s a subtle shift from God’s wisdom to knowing God himself, even knowing that the Name of the Lord is powerful.  We know something about that from one of Paul’s letters.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

    and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

    to the glory of God the Father.

We call him Lamb of God, Messiah, the Christ, but mostly Jesus.

In Solomon’s time, Jehovah, Elohim, El-Shaddai were used where appropriate, if the people thought they could speak the name of the Lord at all.

We should have holy reverence for the name of God, but we should also see the power, authority, and hope that accompanies it.

We are reminded by the psalmist speaking in the first person for God, to be still and know that I am God.

We are embarked on a course of study that daily reminds us that there is God’s way and there is everything else.  Let us not forget how important our relationship with the God in God’s ways is.

Our relationships began when we repented of the ways of the world.  In its full context, repenting is more that just turning away or turning around.  It is a wholesale exchange of the world’s ways for God’s ways. 

That’s heart, soul, body, mind, and spirit.  We leave the old behind and we don’t get a receipt for it so we can pick it up later. 

We think of our salvation as an event, but our repentance seems to be a process.  We say that we are done with the old self and won’t go back, but that old self follows you and begs for you to take it back.

Sometimes the temptation seems too great and you are ready to surrender.  Call upon the name of the Lord.

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower;

    the righteous run to it and are safe.

We know where our help comes from—it comes from the Lord.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—

    where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,

    the Maker of heaven and earth.

As we proceed through this wisdom study, we must not let our hearts and minds reduce God’s wisdom to:

·       A set of rules.

·       Mechanical formulas.

·       A set of equations.

·       Formula-based directives

God is love and there is strength in his name.  His wisdom like his directives comes out of his love and is for our own good.

We should not follow a set of rules hoping to obtain the favor of God.  We should follow his directives and his wisdom and his counsel because he first loved us. We who proclaim Jesus is Lord live in his favor now. He took care of our sin without our help. Our obedience to his directives, wisdom, and counsel is in response to his love.

Our entire lives are to be lived in response to God’s love. Part of that response is to live as the wise, not the unwise, because the age we live in is evil.

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

What does it mean that the days are evil?  We cannot count on godly direction from those who have power or influence.  Does that mean that there are no good people left who get elected or own big companies?

No.  It means that you should seek and acquire God’s wisdom, because you can’t count on godly instruction from the world as a matter of course.

It would be nice if your local schools, elected officials, and business owners all followed God’s word and his wisdom, but that’s not the case.

We are blessed that things are better here than they are in the rest of the country and the rest of the world, but the forces that oppose God and his wisdom are reaching into this part of the country hoping to gain a foothold.

We are better off than most of the country and the world but we had better seek refuge in the Lord and start internalizing his wisdom.

We must know the power of his name.

We must trust that his directives are for our own good.

We must know that his wisdom keeps us on the right path.

We must live our entire lives in response to God’s great love that we know in Christ Jesus.

We must know that there is power in the name of Jesus.

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower;

    the righteous run to it and are safe.

Amen.

To answer before we listen...

 Read Proverbs 18

Let’s talk about human nature.  Solomon did. Consider verse 13.

To answer before listening—

    that is folly and shame.

Why would he include such counsel?  Because it describes our nature.  We often answer before we hear what a person has to say.  We listen to respond. We are not really listening.

Someone hits a keyword or concept or other trigger and it’s off to the races in our response. 

We know quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, but do we live it?  That’s the challenge—to be doers of the word, not just people who hear it and maybe even can recite it.

It is foolish to answer before we hear what someone has to say.  We can take something out of context easily if we don’t listen to the whole story.  It is foolish to answer before we know what we are answering.

You may start talking about torture and I jump in with my opinions.  You want to express why you are against torture for whatever reason but there I go talking techniques and most effective methods of torture, including the never-ending sermon.

Solomon also adds that it is shameful.  To answer without listening is disrespectful.  It says that you have nothing to say that I don’t already know.  You can offer nothing to my knowledge, understanding, or wisdom. It says that you have nothing to offer other than a segue to what I have to say.

Solomon is not talking about a conversation with a fool.  Avoid those.  That means don’t answer at all other than to remove yourself from the conversation.

He is talking about our interaction with others who have not declared there is no God. In our conversations with those who know there is a God and are seeking him at their own pace, we should give them an ear.

We might gain understanding.  We might have something of value to offer them, but only if we understand them first.

That does not mean that we engage in every conversation.  Consider the reply of Jesus to the young man who wanted him to referee family matters. We find this in the Parable of Bigger Barns or The Rich Fool.

Who made me referee of this matter?

Not my circus.  Not my monkey.

This is just something to distract me from my mission.

There are conversations that we won’t have because wisdom says not my circus, not my monkey.

I specifically tell people in marriage counseling that I won’t have ex parte conversations and I won’t be judge or referee. When I get a question or a situation from only one person while the other is not present, my answer is no answer.  Sometimes it’s a reminder of the ground rules.

There are plenty of times that I choose not to answer.  I may issue instructions, but I won’t answer the narrative offered. Somebody wants to plead their case to me and my response is this is our focus.  You are not having that conversation with me.  I am staying on task.  Want to come along?

So, I am not saying that you must engage or avoid conversations, but if you choose to be a part to a conversation, then listen before you speak.

If you choose to be a part of a conversation, then choose to listen to understand.

Our nature is to compose our response while someone else is talking.  When our response is ready, we often interrupt.

Ask yourself, do i:

Listen to respond?

Or

Listen to understand?

The former leads to folly and shame. The latter to real conversation and exchange of thoughts and ideas and sometimes even growth.

So what is the message to those of us seeking God’s wisdom?

You must know the who, what, when, and sometimes the why to listen, but when you choose to listen, really listen.  Don’t make your listening conditional on waiting for an excuse to speak.

Proverbs and James agree.  Quick to listen and slow to speak are sound counsel in any age.

Consider the parallel in verse 17.

In a lawsuit the first to speak seems right,

    until someone comes forward and cross-examines.

The advantage of speaking first may be short-lived, at least in an adjudicated proceeding.  Elsewhere conversation may be a free-for-all, so go back to knowing the who, what, when, and sometimes the why before you engage in conversation.

But when you do engage, really listen.  To answer before listening is folly and shameful.

Amen.