Reading Proverbs is a bit like reading the Bible it can be done in different ways. There are some who read it from start to finish, but in doing so you recognise it doesn’t necessarily work as a beginning-middle-end narrative book. Yet if you read the first few chapters of the book you’d notice a few things that keep occurring and one of the key chorus lyrics is Get Wisdom.
If that remains the key commitment some things follow from that. First the company you keep becomes of great importance (vs. 14, 18 & 19). I’d be intrigued to discover if the relationships we value over time drastically change in the light of the advice given by the writer of Proverbs. It makes sense that if you treasure wisdom as if it was the most valuable commodity in life the relationships would begin to reflect that. You wouldn’t spend too much time with those who don’t value what wisdom values.
It also follows that if our commitment to wisdom is going to be effective that we monitor the state of hearts with the utmost importance (vs. 23). That level of vigilance and diligence does not make you a boring technocrat who cannot do anything without first seeing in a mechanical fashion if this is right. This is a lot about that key again – the desire.
Check the nature of the approach to life issues – complaining about things, gossiping about people, viewing matters and personalities in the worst possible light, believing things have failed before even giving it a chance. What does that suggest about the state of the heart? Delighting in the vulgar, glorifying the profane, celebrating the vicious and brutal, wallowing in the crude and explicitly sensual. What does that suggest about the state of the heart?
These issues are of value because this is the way of the wicked that is now common fodder in every day life. TV programmes, web-sites, magazines, news outlets, cinemas, regular conversations in the workplace. It doesn’t have to be explicit because it is often a part of the fabric, taken for granted, seen as harmless, endorsed as acceptable in the privacy of your own home. That which is permitted though isn’t that which is productive or life-enhancing.
The focus, though, changes everything. Changes relationships, changes pastimes and hobbies, changes television habits, changes the very language we use in everyday life. The focus – and the focus is on wise living. The focus is on how can our lives reflect that of the one who gives life to enjoy. The focus is not on the mundane, titillating and murky. Indeed, when the company we keep tends to support righteous pursuits, the language we use constructs that which makes for peace and the nature of the heart prefers that which is godly, it falls in line with the encouragement of Paul.
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)
When the heart is completely focussed on that – when the desire is for that true progress in life is possible.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 