Proverbs For Life: Part Two
PROVERBS FOR LIFE: PART TWO
Our good God cares how we live. He made us for His glory as we are blessed by Him, and as we serve as witnesses to His Goodness before the world. So, as we consider these proverbs, we will see how He guides us through His Wisdom, and how He so perfectly blesses us and others. For instance, in Proverbs 17:22 He explains; the cheerful heart acts like potent and beneficial medicine—giving us spiritual, emotional and physical health. Then, as He often does, He contrasts His blessing with the pitfalls of following the world’s way of thinking. Those who do so find their spirits crushed by their own pride. Without Him and the perfect wisdom which comes from trusting God’s Word, we are doomed to become, even as we live, like dried up, dead men’s bones. There remains only lifeless nothingness—our lives literally perish without His Wisdom and His Love.
We who know Him discover that everything we own belongs to Him. God places everything we have in our hands so we can offer it back to Him in loving service. He chooses to bless us. In following Him we choose to bless others with all we have, for He has freely given all of it to us. He fills our barns to bless others. He blesses our every source of plenty—for He has others He wants to bless through us, and the gifts we have because He has given us so much. Jesus reverses this picture in the parable he tells about the rich man and his barns. This rich man continues making bigger and bigger barns for himself. He never finds the blessing of sharing with others, but when he dies he loses all of his control over the wealth he has hoarded. God freely gives good gifts to us. Then our first act in gratitude and worship is to share with others. In sharing we do so with delight, for he has given us the opportunity to share His blessings.
PROVERBS 22:1
Actually, then, we discover in living our lives open-handed, always looking to give rather than to hoard, the depth and the breadth of God’s riches completely surrendered to Him and His purpose in blessing His world. Then His glory grows in the eyes of the world, and our own reputation shifts from pointing to ourselves into multiplying opportunities to praise Him before the world. Even when we earn a reputation before the world—we make it our testimony to point people away from us and to Him. He deserves our every act of love. He deserves our unselfishness. He deserves our acts of unselfish service given to those who need it most—all accomplished by His grace and for His glory. Then, as is His true Nature, He stretches our hearts to receive more and more so that we can share with others more and more until they, too, find that their hands are full, so they can share, even as He has shared with us.
You know, words are a particularly noble gift from God. Surrendered by our imperfect hearts to His perfect heart, they become a blessing for healing in the midst of those stumbling through the pain of grief. He alone can take our words and fill them with power to restore and to rebuild spirits broken by the cares of the world. He can miraculously take our words as a proverbial “anti-match,” neither sparking the fire of anger nor spreading the wildfires which threaten not only ourselves but those around us. How blessed and how calming come HIs Spirit-inspired words of peace. How blessed come those cooling and refreshing showers which bless when love’s declaration dampens the most deadly fires of out-of-control anger. God’s Love becomes the damper which conquers all of the Enemy’s fires so that we and all God’s children receive release and then recovery from the Enemy’s angry and dangerously flaming words—all his lies.
Ultimately, as the Lord’s Spirit strengthens the sensitivity of our hearts seeking His glory, we discover how dearly we are blessed by His own people who become our friends. Those who walk especially close by His side, often speak Truth they have received from Him. Even if such words, which come upon us hot from the altar fires of worship, seem to sear us with their holy heat. They destroy and ultimately heal any imperfections in us. And when the Lord does so, we find ourselves always stronger, better and certainly healthier than we have ever been. So, as we read in Proverbs 27:6 the wounds of a friend-in-Jesus are faithful, helpful, bountiful—overflowing with His rich blessings.
The Book of Proverbs in the Bible records in the midst of God’s Story of Redemption available to all human kind, deep, abiding wisdom, which guides us clearly in God’s path for our blessing and His Glory. When we carefully consider these Proverbs, and pray for God’s Holy Spirit to use them, they inspire and direct our hearts. We find ourselves walking His perfect path for us. May we allow God to accomplish in us His Purpose in Proverbs, and in all of His Blessed Word, so that His perfect light illuminates all our days. As we are so blessed, may we fulfill His desire to richly bless His beloved world while His Spirit works in and through us. Amen!
