Reading: Proverbs 4:1-13

Some people want to have a life.

Others want to live it up.

Almost everybody wants to experience real livin’.

Whether or not they know it, everyone needs purpose for living.

Well, put me down for all four of the above.

Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to these three verse fragments in today’s passage:

“Keep my commandments, and live” (4).

“Receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many” (10).

“Keep her; for she is thy life” (13).

I choose wisdom.

I choose obedience.

I choose living.

I choose life.

from Proverbs 4:6

A little bit more from Proverbs 4: Uninhibited

Reading: Proverbs 3:27-35

Sometimes — oftentimes, it seems — we humans take personally a wrong (real or imagined) done against another. Even though no harm has been done to us, we take personal offense. We may feel insulted, angry, hurt, bitter, and/or who knows what else. We may even enter into a conflict that is not our own at all.

I thought of that when I read verse 30 this morning:

“Strive not with a man without cause, if he have done thee no harm.”

I thought of a woman who got very angry with me even though I had done her no wrong. She ended up entering into strife with no personal cause at all.

I see that quite clearly. Just as I see that obeying this verse would have helped her avoid problems for herself as well as would have helped her avoid causing further problems for others.

Alas, I don’t see matters quite as clearly when I am the one taking up somebody else’s offense.

Let me see clearly the next time I’m inclined to strive with somebody without cause!

God calls His people to graceful, godly peacemaking — not to angry meddling and strife.

I want to be a peacemaker!

from Proverbs 3:32

A little bit more from Proverbs 3: Are They Blessed in My House?