Putting the I into WISDOM
The Christians who have most influenced me for good have had a fully functional familiarity with the book of Proverbs. They were (and are) able to take their considerable knowledge and apply it to their lives, providing both godly examples and godly advice. Join with me as each of us endeavors to put the I into WISDOM. Let us seek to exemplify God’s wisdom in our daily lives. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Yesterday, we considered that our speech can be a wise and winsome waterfall of words, a cataract of quality communication. This positive life-enlivening encouragement is engagingly elucidated in the evergreen imagery of Proverbs 15:4: “A wholesome [healing] tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in [a crushing of] the spirit.” Rather than squeezing the life out of others, we can help people to be planted in the faith. Psalm 1 is a well-known text on this subject. If we avoid the naysayers (verse 1) and instead seek the words of God (verse 2), we become “like a tree planted by the rivers of water” (verse 3). Jeremiah 17:8 expands this thought: “For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.” Psalm 92:12-15 intensifies the imagery; verse 13 says, “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.” Being planted by the water brings us to being “planted in the house of the Lord”! What are our words planting in others?