Proverbial Wisdom: Just Do It!

 Read Proverbs 14

One of the greatest gifts ever given was woman.  If you read the book of Genesis carefully, we will understand the preciousness of women in our lives.  They are special because they were sculpted and created to share in the fellowship with God and to walk alongside man for the rest of days.  Verse one begins to mention directly what a wise woman looks like.

Verse 1:  Every wife will either build her home or tear it down.  If she walks with the Lord, she will be a builder; if she disobeys God’s wisdom, she will be a destroyer.  She must be faithful to her husband, for “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who causes shame is like rottenness in his bones.” (12:4)  A crown or a cancer:  What a choice!  And beauty isn’t the only quality a man should look for; wisdom and discretion are extremely important.

We read about the simple in this proverb.  The “simple” are naive people who believe everything because they don’t have convictions about anything.  These are the wishy washy type people we see in today’s culture who have a tendency to “ride the fence” especially when it comes to moral decisions.  What they think is sophisticated “tolerance” is only spiritual ignorance, because they lack the ability to discriminate between truth and error.  When people are this way they are usually rooted in fear to say what they really believe.  Again, they are not rooted in truth, but are rooted on the whims of man.  God doesn’t want us on the fence.  We are either for Him or against Him.  There is no in between.  

Verse 16 is a strong reminder of one we have mentioned before and is a great reminder from the life of Joseph.  When sin tempts us, we should depart.  We should flee from sin.  If we fear the Lord, we will hate evil.  The person whose confidence rests solely in himself or herself isn’t wise and can plunge ahead recklessly.  Joshua was self confident and lost a battle.  Samson was self confident and became a prisoner.  Peter was self confident and denied the Lord three times.  We need to understand that sometimes we are not as strong as we think we are.  Our strength lies in the Lord.  If we are finding ourselves constantly being tempted by a situation, we need to flee from it.  In fact, God allowing the temptation in our life may be a message from Him telling us that we need to walk away from that situation.

Verse 18 again reminds us of “the simple.”  A young simpleton listened to the prostitute and ended up like an animal led to the slaughter.  Simpletons lack common sense and are simple because they reject the truth of God’s Word that gives us prudence to the simple.  The tragedy is that simple people actually love their simplmindedness and have no desire to change.  Because they don’t stand for anything, they fall for everything; this saves them the trouble of thinking, studying, praying, and asking God for wisdom.  Instead of working hard to dig into God’s wisdom, the simple prefer to take it easy and pick up whatever they can without any digging into the Word of God.

I am making an effort to memorize verse 21.  It seems in the world anymore that there is not much compassion to the poor.  How do we help the poor?  To begin with, we ought not to look down on the poor because of their troubles, thinking we are better than they.  As a wise man once said, “there but for the grace of God, am I.”  God has a special concern for the poor and needy, and in exploiting them we will find ourselves in conflict with the Lord.  The Lord always pleads the case of the poor and will always take up for the poor. 

Some people are poor and needy though because of their own foolish choices.  We should still have mercy on them, but we can be merciful by helping and reminding them why they may be in the situation they are in.  Verse 23 is a good verse to remind folks of.  Some people are needy and poor because they like to talk but never act.  This should remind us of the parable of the two sons found in the book of Matthew.  One son said the right words but never followed through with them.  He kept saying how he was going to get things done, but he never did.  The second son expressed himself in the wrong way at the beginning but then had second thoughts and then got the job done and accomplished the Father’s will.  This should remind us that sometimes it’s better to not promise and then do than to promise and then not do.

We hurt others by talking instead of working.  Humankind seems to be divided into three classes:  dreamers who have great ideas but never accomplish much, talkers who exercise their jaw muscles and vocal cords but not their hands and feet, and doers who talk little but with God’s help, turn their dreams into realities.

Are you a dreamer, a talker, or a doer?  God asks us to be doers.  He reminds us of this in the book of James.  

We know the poor need help, so we should help the poor.  Not dream or talk about it, but actually do it.  We all have to grocery shop at one point usually during the week.  The next time you are at the grocery store, how about picking up a few more things to donate to a local food pantry?  Modern technology has also made giving so much more easier in today’s world.  Maybe there’s an orphanage you can give to?  Maybe helping the poor can be simply you giving of your time to help in a soup kitchen.  God wants us to help and if we are honest with ourselves, we can be doers and do something for the furtherance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Instead of just talking about it, do it.  

Let us be wise, be doers, and honor God in everything that we do.