God Conceals Things
Wow. Proverbs 25 starts off with another bang. It
is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings to search them
out. I am in awe of the simple wisdom in
this passage. God conceals things for
two primary reasons. First, he conceals
them so that those who are truly seeking Him would be able to find Him while
all the fakes and phonies in the world will go back to living the life they
would really want to live. {For the record, this is the same reason
that Jesus spoke in parables, remember?}
The second reason that God conceals things is so that when He is
revealed, we know that it is truly God.
The lesson here is that God enjoys concealing Himself because He knows
it will be more productive to His revelation to those who are honestly looking
for Him.
Kings Seek Things Out
However,
look at how this verse ends. Kings
desire to seek things out. Prior to
reading this proverb, I had just been reading an article about archaeology. I was astonished by the parallel. Why do most people think finding some ancient
treasure trove would be neat? Think of
the wealth and publicity that would come from it! Why do some people long to write that
wonderful best-selling novel? Think of
all the wealth and publicity that would come from it! Human beings love to seek things out because
we crave the notoriety and the reward.
God conceals for the benefit of those who truly love Him. We seek things out for the sake of our own
glory. Human beings really are the
self-monger.
Humbleness
Proverbs
25:6-7 naturally go hand in hand with Luke 14:8-11. Both are portions of scripture that advocate
humbleness. What is the humbleness-related
theme that I seem to be chasing through the book of Proverbs? Humbleness comes before honor. It is better to assume a humble position and
to be told to come into the presence of an important figure than it is to
assume an important position and be told to step back.
On a
spiritual level, I think there is an important lesson here as well. Am I willing to play the role that my king – the
Lord God – really wants me to play? Am I
willing to do what He asks and assume the humble position? Am I willing to do the mundane while I wait
for Him to tell me, “Come here, for I have a special role for you to play in
the life of this person or such-and-such cause?” For God does have a special role for all of
us. I just wonder how willing am I to
play the role of the humble servant until those moments come.
Vomit
Proverbs
25:16 is a neat passage. And yes, I will
confess that anytime I come across the word “vomit” in scripture I make a
mental note of the passage. {One of my other favorite proverbs is
Proverbs 26:11, and I am already sure that it will be included in my blog post
for tomorrow!} But in this passage
we hear that when we find honey, eat only enough to satisfy us. For if we over-indulge, we will vomit the
honey back up. Isn’t it really cool that
I’m going to be able to make a spiritual point out of such an obviously gross
passage?
How many
of us ever ate too much ice cream or candy when we were a child? How many of us ever sat down to a big meal of
good food and ate until we made ourselves sick?
Thanksgiving is right around the corner, remember… How many of us have ever loved the sun so
much that we stayed out in it too long only to come in and either have a bad
sunburn – or even worse – have sun poisoning?
We know this lesson. You can have
too much of a good thing. This reminds
me of one of my new favorite clichés: “drinking from the end of a fire
hose.” Good food, sunshine, and water
are all good things. But if you get too
much of them too quickly, they can actually end up in a bad experience.
Believe it
or not, the same is true on a spiritual plane.
I’ve had experiences before where I got so wrapped up in what God is
doing in my life that I made too many changes too quickly. I was so excited about what was going on that
I stuck my face into God’s spiritual fire hose.
I dipped my hand too often into the spiritual feast. What ended up happening to me is that I ended
up making changes in my life that I wasn’t prepared to make. I started getting ahead of God. I started doing things that He had not
prepared me to do. It doesn’t mean I was
making bad changes, I was just getting ahead of God.
In the
end, I got burned. I had a few bad
experiences, exposed my hypocrisy, and tasted the bile that comes after we make
an error in judgment. I think Solomon is
right here. When we find honey – a
popular symbol for God’s Word in the Old Testament – we need to make sure and
not eat too much at once. We need to eat
our fill and be properly challenged. But
we need to only eat what God has prepared for us to consume. If we overdo it, we’ll end up making poorly
thought out decisions and decisions that we aren’t really spiritually willing
to support. We’ll end up exposing our
hypocrisy. So pace yourself. It is best to grow towards God slowly and
deeply and richly. A constant and steady
growth towards the Lord is far more meaningful than taking 3 steps forward
followed by taking two steps back.
Without Self-Control
I’m going
to end really quickly on the last verse of this chapter. A person without self-control is like a city
without solid walls. A person without
self-control has no defense. A person
without self-control has no means of keeping the thieves and the pillagers
out. A person without self-control has
no means of protecting the soul inside.
People come, take what they want, leave what they want, and then walk
away. When we live a life without
self-control, the same thing happens to us.
We are like waves tossed around by the wind or we are like the grain of
the field blown every which way by the wind.
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