Pondering the Principles of Proverbs
Whoever diligently seeks good seeks favor, but evil comes to him who searches for it. (Pro. 11:27)
For those who understand military ranking, I made E-3 six times in four years. That simply means I kept getting "busted" in rank, ie, demoted. It was always for something I did wrong, which is something I seemed to always do. My four years of service to our country was not served with honor, even though I loved the Navy and the many things that kind of life offered.
I came to the place in my expectations that I was "a screw-up."
I also began to believe that trouble would automatically find me when it went looking for someone to land on.
Something happened in late 1969 that would forever render that man obsolete--dead.
I began to believe in love.
I began to believe in good.
I began to believe that what Jesus said, as recorded in the Bible, was true.
I met and began to follow Jesus as Lord and Savior.
My life has never been the same since.
My expectations have changed.
Do not pervert this into some sort of "pollyanna perception" on my part.
I recognize that there is evil in the world. I see that bad things happen to good and bad people alike. I see trauma and its consequences. I have gone through some of this myself since the change in my being.
Now, however, I understand that these are merely events. They are not the pattern that I understood and experienced earlier.
The pattern I now enjoy is that of favor, good, blessings, happiness, joy.
The word in the verse rendered "searches" means "to apply oneself to anything, to study, to follow, to practise anything..." (from
Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon)
Their mind is focused on "what's wrong."
I believe that may be referred to as a worldly mindset.
As I look around, listen to people and watch the events of their life, I become even more convinced of the reality of this proverb.
Many who spend the majority of their time complaining about things, have lives that they are not happy with.
Those who do not spend much time in a negative mindset, seem to bounce right along in life regardless of circumstances. Their circumstances seem to move out of the negative realm much more rapidly than those who complain.
The complaints I am talking about certainly are about the way things "are;" but there is also a manner of complaining about "what is coming" ie, a negative expectation.
I am continually surprised by the number of believers who fall into this camp. It comes across as a practical atheism, because they do not seem to ever acknowledge that God has it all figured out.
The worst form of all, however, is the manner of complaining about the way people are, and the way they think.
Usually, that is about people with whom the complainer has little contact. Yet, they "know" what they are thinking.
Really?
What a gift!
However, when it is all boiled down to its essence, what this simple-minded writer has observed is this:
negative people seem to live in a self-fulfilling prophecy, while positive people seem to live in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And so it goes.
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