Pondering the Principles of Proverbs
Wisdom is not something for a select few. It is not the singular domain of gurus. It does not belong only to the formally educated. It is not limited to the aged or only to those who have graduated from “Knocks College.”
One wit has stated that wisdom comes from experience and experience is just a series of bad judgments.
Wisdom is available to everyone, at all times, in all places, until...
This is the sad part, the part we see so often with so many people in such sad and trying circumstances...until wisdom is no longer available (Pro. 1:26-28).
It is not wise to wait until you are in desperate circumstances to try to gain the wisdom necessary to avoid those circumstances. That's kind of like the proverb that states “closing the barn door after the horse is out.” Useless.
For instance, many are drowning in debt these days. They turn to debt counselors, or debt consolidators, or lawyers to help relieve the pressure of their indebtedness. The way into debt was easy; so easy in fact, that most never see the problems on the horizon. But the way out of debt can be a life-taker, a marriage-breaker, a dream-stealer; and it takes much longer to extricate oneself from the entanglement of debt than it did to create the web.
Wisdom, however, was there all along, continually calling, warning, trying to gain the attention of the one who was playing dangerously.
Wisdom was there in simple math—if you pay back more than you borrowed, you have lost.
Wisdom was there in a multitude of proverbs and stories. “The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg” carries wisdom for the discerning ones. Shakespeare's line “neither a borrower nor a lender be” (Polonius in Act I, Scene 3 of William Shakespeare's Hamlet) is a prophylactic to debt.
How about rampant disease? So many of our modern diseases are directly related to our lifestyle, yet wisdom has called from many a venue trying to get us to change. What we eat, what we don't eat, what we believe about getting ahead, constant competition, lack of rest, and many other things have all been addressed and warnings given. There are a multitude of examples of those who did not heed wisdom's counsel, yet we stumble blindly onward.
Wisdom shouts from many a place at many times to many people, but she is not everywhere welcome.
"How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?” (Proverbs 1:22)
There was a series of jokes going around my freshman year of high school that had the punch line, “Mother, please! I'd rather do it myself.” Who knew then that we were predicting a way of life soon to come?
That has now become a reality. We are left to our own devices as wisdom has disappeared from our midst, all because “I'd rather do it myself.”
Are you now in a place where wisdom eludes you? Do you search for wisdom only to find it in continual hiding?
Have you taken up the challenge to read a chapter of this book of wisdom every day? Could you do it for a month? Who will rise to the challenge of doing it for a year?
Go for it, and your life will change.
That is a promise with an iron-clad guarantee.
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