"These are the proverbs of Solomon, David's son, king of Israel. Their purpose is to teach people wisdom and discipline, to help them understand the wisdom of the wise. Their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives, to help them do what is right, just, and fair. These proverbs will give insight to the simple, knowledge and discernment to the young." (Proverbs 1:1-5). A common musical term found in the book of Psalms is "selah" which means to pause and contemplate what has just been said or sung. "Selah"can be appropriately advised concerning Proverbs 1 and especially these first 5 verses in that if you're not careful you'll miss the point.
I know I did for so many years of reading Proverbs. In the past whenever I would read the book of Proverbs, I would just skim through this chapter, dismissing it as just the preliminaries leading up to the really "important stuff." I mean who actually reads all of the minute details of a college course syllabus or the missions statement of a company you are applying for? (Okay so maybe you do) Now admittedly, I am NOT the most detail oriented person although I was moreso in my younger years. But somehow the addition of years, increased responsibility, deadlines, and the busyness of life have shortened my attention span, and I have by default become more of a "bottom line" person (except in my writing). Plus in this high tech age we have gotten spoiled by instant everything, from drive through windows to instant communication. As a result, taking time to read and understand the details can become tedious.
And yet these first few verses of Proverbs are not only the mission statement of the entire book but also a call for self examination in light of God's wisdom and discipline. So now as I read these same words I am less likely to say, "Okay wisdom, check, discipline, check, knowledge check, yada, yada yada. Okay I got this" and have learned to respond instead, "You know what? I don't have it altogether. There is always room for more Godly wisdom so maybe I need to pay attention. How do I measure up to the wisdom and discipline of God and how do these verses speak to me? " And so I began to see that these so called "preliminaries" ARE the "important stuff"and are not to be taken lightly.
Many of us who are adults do not see ourselves in verses 10-19 at this point in our lives though we may use these verses to exhort our children, grandchildren, younger siblings, nieces, nephews, or students to obey their parents, resist temptation, and not to hang out with thugs and hoodlums. But what about us? We may no longer live under our parents' rule; however, how many times do we routinely break traffic laws. And peer pressure does not stop at adulthood. While we may not be enticed to ambush and kill someone to get their loot, how many times have we been tempted to fit in with the crowd in murdering someone's reputation by engaging in harmful gossip because it makes for interesting discussion and somehow makes us feel better about our own warts and flaws. Such behavior left unchecked never ends well.
But God in his mercy reaches out his hand of wisdom in the next few verses calling us to come to him so that he can share his heart with us and make us wise. God calls. We answer. End of story... right? Not exactly. Unfortunately, although God is calling, too often we are not listening... and those who refuse to listen are called simpleminded, fools, and mockers. It is not that we are necessarily bad people. Mostly preoccupied, distracted by earthly life, busy, self sufficient, fill in the blank_______. We believe in God yet we trudge through everyday life as if he does not exist. We take care of family, career, school, social activities, and may even go to church regularly, living nice neat clean lives but in the most intimate recesses of our heart, God still seems to come in last place.
There is nothing like a crisis to rock our world, get our attention, and wake us up from our complacency. This is the essence of verses 20-33. It is a fact, that many of us do not listen and will not change until all things we thought we knew and could trust in start falling apart and we are left with nothing else to do but call on God and cry out for his wisdom. I know I have been around this mountain many times. Got the tee shirt, the hat and the banner. The good news is that when we finally let go of what we think we need so much and cannot live without, God gives us something so much better.
As a personal example, when the man I was engaged to before I met my husband, broke off the engagement four months before the wedding, my heart was shattered. In my heart of hearts I knew he was not God's best for me, there were many red flags (which I tried to ignore) and many people tried to warn me, but it was still hard to let go and I literally thought I would never love again. I let go of the engagement outwardly but letting go in my heart took much longer. But I finally surrendered and decided to trust God to bring me the right person. Now that I am married to my husband, I am so glad that God did not let me compromise for less than his best and I cannot even remember what I saw in that other person. And I have seem this happen in different situations time after time in my life. One of these days I will learn to trust God on the front end instead of waiting until a crisis hits. Can I get a witness?
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