Year 2, Day 306: Proverbs 15

God Sees Everything

It is verses like Proverbs 15:3 that kept me awake at night as a child.  God’s eyes are everywhere.  He can see everything.  Nothing escapes His perception.

Seriously, as a little kid those kinds of thoughts would keep me awake.  How could I ever look God in the face?  He’d know everything I did wrong, every thought I had that was wrong, and every mistake I intentionally did.  Who can live under that pressure?

With some maturity – and enough mistakes under my belt to realize that one more isn’t going to tip the scale any more into deserving wrath than I already deserve it – I have a bit of a different perspective on my faith.  Sure, it is still a bit scary to realize that God sees and knows everything.  But that also means that He sees the successes, too.  It also means that He sees those times when I got what I didn’t deserve.  It also means that I can trust Him to be righteous, just, and fair.  He may see everything; but that just means that chances are that God knows me better than I know myself.  Anymore, I think that’s a pretty cool thing.

Wisdom Breeds Wisdom

Proverbs 15:7 also gives us a pretty cool line of logic.  The lips of the wise spread knowledge; not so with the hearts of fools.  The lips of the wise spread knowledge through their correction, rebuilding, and teaching.  The lips of the wise are about helping others become wise.  The lips of the wise are about helping people live in community and fellowship with God and one another in the way that God designed!

But what about the hearts of fools?  Do not the hearts of fools seek after their own desires?  Do not the hearts of fools say, “I want this; I don’t care whether God thinks it is good for me or not.”  Do not the hearts of fools promote passion, self-centeredness, and a general lack of thoughtfulness?

Using Resources Wisely

Proverbs 15:16-17 lead us back into an understanding of wealth, resources, and stewardship.  Verse 16 tells us that it is better to have a little while also having the fear of the Lord than to have a lot and disregard the Lord.  In other words, if we have a little and have the Lord, we can put our trust in the Lord’s ability to manage His resources and allocate to us what we need.  But if we have a lot and we don’t have the Lord, then we will always have trouble because we’ll always be looking out for where we can get more so we don’t run out.  Good stewardship begins with an understanding that all that we have is the Lord’s and that we need to fear – be in awe, if you will – of God’s ability to manage His resources.

Relationship Impact Our Situation

Then we move into Proverbs 15:17.  A dinner of herbs – or salad, if you will – is better when shared with love than the choicest of all dinners when shared with hatred.  In other words, our relational resources should be far more important to us than our material resources.  The love and fellowship we share can sustain us through the lean years.  But will wealth and riches sustain us when we are surrounded by strife and enmity?

What Is The Question?

Proverbs 15:28 also struck a chord with me today – especially the first part of that proverb.  The heart of the wise ponders how to answer.  The question I asked of myself is … ponders what?  Well, the answer is that in order to ponder an answer, one must be asked a question.  So who asks the question? 

Sometimes the question comes from inside; sometimes the question comes from outside.  But what I hear in this proverb is the importance of the wise to understand their place in community. 

Wisdom and knowledge are not gained for the puffing up of ourselves and for the making of ourselves seem important.  Wisdom and knowledge are gained so that we can be prepared to answer the questions and ponderings of our own hearts and the hearts of the people around us.  Wisdom and knowledge are gained for the sake of the community and its edification.

Humility Before Honor

I will leave with the final words of this proverb, which I believe are very self-explanatory.  Humility comes before honor. 

True that.

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