In the past 24 hours, I managed to drive away from the gas pump without putting my gas cap back on, destroy some important utensils in the garbage disposal, ruin a recipe because I was too impatient to follow the instructions--I was not about to waste 7 whole minutes mixing the ingredients--and almost started a small fire on my kitchen stove; I think this qualifies as "foolish living." I felt like an idiot after these disastrous events because I knew better. As a parent I am constantly warning and scolding my children on the dangers of carelessness, but I now realize that I often don't take my own advice.

I use these examples to illustrate the way I choose to not follow God's way. Not following God is usually much easier, doesn't require much thinking, and there is a short-term result. However, the long-term effects of not following God's will inevitably catch up, as my examples also illustrate. Although not following God's way won't lead to your garbage disposal tearing up or your kitchen catching on fire, it can lead to brokenness, emptiness, and an unfulfilled life.

The Book of Proverbs is a common sense guide to life. If you follow the teachings set forth in Proverbs, you will live a rewarding life, one that is blessed by God.

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We have had the opportunity to review God's Wisdom in the book of Proverbs. We studied instruction on influence, productivity, money, friendship, and our words. We have seen the consequences of being prideful or humble, lazy or productive, healing or destroying, disciplined or out of control and being a friend or a foe. King Solomon asked God for wisdom and his writings are the advice given to him. Solomon's first wise choice was sharing them with the world.

How are we choosing to live?
As followers of Christ, may we always strive to be conscious of our daily choices and live to be righteous, humble, and teachable.
May we work to pass on the example of Christ always to them and others, glorifying his name in all we do.
May we strive to have control and discipline over our finances, but to give back to God what belongs to him and to save for the future.
May we as followers always be a friend to others, avoiding the destruction of gossip. May our words always be encouraging and healing to those we speak to and may we choose our words carefully, as to not tear down another human spirit. We should be trustworthy, nonjudgmental, and consistent in controlling what we do and the effect of what we do.
Finally, may we always strive to have a heart of purity, for it is our heart that reveals who we are to God and others.

There are many choices for wisdom and foolishness.
May we always choose to be like God, studying the
Book of Wisdom and praying for God's refinement.

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Choices. How many do we make in a day? I'm sure there is some statistic out there about how many things we have to decide in one day, but I'm going to leave it at this: there are a lot. So many, in fact, that should we set out to count the choices we have to make in one day, we would lose count before breakfast. What time will I get up? Will I get up? And what will I wear? What shoes? Will I have breakfast? What do I want to eat? The list goes on and on.

The thing is, not every choice we make has obvious and quick repercussions on whether our lives are wise or foolish. The combined effect, though, is a life that either shines with the wisdom of God or reflects only our own human foolishness. No, our choice of shoes does not necessarily make us a wise or foolish person (although I suppose it could depend on the shoes). Whether to get up in the morning or to stay in bed, though, is a choice that distinguishes the wise and industrious individual from the lazy one. This is how our choices shape us and our lives, and every time we make a decision we allow ourselves to be shaped one way or another.

My prayer for everyone in our community is that we will not forget the different paths we have had laid before us this summer, but will often think back on the lessons we have learned and ask ourselves every day: What direction am I headed?

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Proverbs 1:2 tells us that the purpose of these proverbs "is to teach people wisdom and discipline, to help them understand the insights of the wise."

The Proverbs of Solomon tell us so much about how to live life. They are instructional, helpful, insightful, and often funny. Certain parts of the Proverbs seem a bit disjointed to me, like a collection of wise sayings. But buried within them I always find some bits of real truth that applies directly to my life. It seems that so many of the struggles and issues that I deal with have been part of our human experience throughout history. I'm not so different from the rest of you, even though sometimes I might think I'm the only one who suffers
the problems I face.

I know that I could benefit a whole lot if I read my bible more. I don't often slow down long enough from all my other activities to stop and absorb God's wisdom for my life. When I do find time to read my bible, I always gain some insight into my present struggles. So maybe I will try to start spending more time with my bible open. Will you?

Proverbs 1:7 warns us "Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline."

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Dictionary.com defines wisdom as "the ability to apply knowledge, experience, or understanding." In other words, as someone told me once, wisdom is being able to use what you know. Simple knowledge, then, is useless without appropriate action to accompany it.

Over the last few weeks, we've heard a lot of different trinkets of wisdom. We've heard about the choices we make every day that take our lives in one direction or another. Each choice leads us in one direction or another.
As we remember which way is considered Biblically wise and which is considered Biblically foolish, we should always consider which way we will choose, always remembering that to know what we should do and not do it is sin, and to know the better way and ignore it is, indeed, foolish.

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