Proverbs
Devotions in Proverbs
(**denotes very visual devotion)
**Proverbs 3:5 - Test of Love
**Proverbs 3:6 - God's Guiding Hand
**Proverbs 3:9 - Honor God First
Proverbs 3:30 - So Far as it Depends on You
Proverbs 6:16-19 - Hate What God Hates
**Proverbs 8:7 - Get Away!
Proverbs 8:11 - Wisdom
**Proverbs 11:3 - Integrity or Crookedness
Proverbs 11:12 - Be Wise and Understanding
Proverbs 12:1 - Discipline, Correction, Rebuke, Chastisement
**Proverbs 13:20 - Influences
Proverbs 14:12 - Seems Like a Good Idea
**Proverbs 15:3 - It's the Pits
**Proverbs 15:4 - Be Gentle
**Proverbs 16:18 - Tower of Trouble
**Proverbs 17:3 - Flopification
**Proverbs 17:22 - Be Joyful
**Proverbs 18:15b - What Do You Want to Hear?
**Proverbs 18:24 - A Valuable Friend
**Proverbs 21:5 - Hasty
**Proverbs 21:23 - The Law of Unexpected Consequences
**Proverbs 22:3 - Bursting the Balloon
**Proverbs 23:2 - Greed
**Proverbs 24:13 - Wisdom
**Proverbs 24:14 - Sweet Like Honey
**Proverbs 24;16 - When You're Under Pressure
**Proverbs 24:27 - Prepare Your Field First
Proverbs 25:2 - Hide and Seek
**Proverbs 25:28 - Be Self-Controlled
**Proverbs 26:20 - Remove Yourself From the Situation
**Proverbs 26:21 - An Explosive Situation
Proverbs 27:14 - Timing is Everything
**Proverbs 27:17 - Iron Sharpens Iron
**Proverbs 27:19 - What's Inside
Proverbs 28:9 - As For Me and My House
**Proverbs 28:26 - Seek Godly Wisdom
***Proverbs 29:18 - Don't let It Slip Through Your Fingers
**Test of Love
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. - Proverbs 3:5
Materials needed: Love Languages for kids test, pencils, YEA lesson YE2F.3
What kind of behavior do you like? More specifically, how do you like people to show you that they love you? In 1992 Gary Chapman published a book called The Five Love Languages. He explained that, to have the best relationship possible, you need to show that you love someone by treating them the way they want to be treated, that is, specifically, showing love to them in the way they want to be loved.
Since then, quizzes have been developed to help determine what the primary (and secondary) languages are for the user. Adult, teenager, and child versions are available.
So what is your primary love language? Do you prefer 1) acts of service; 2) words of affirmation; 3) gifts; 4) physical touch; or 5) quality time.
The idea is that if you prefer quality time and you don’t get quality time, and you get any of the other love languages, you are not going to feel as loved. Each of us has an idea of what being loved looks like, and when those actions are not present in our relationships, our relationship suffers. Even if the person spends time with you, but you fight the whole time, that doesn’t show love. Or if they bring you a gift and the gift is something you don’t like or don’t want, you may not even count it as a gift. And if you know that the other person knows what you like, and they choose not to love you in that manner, you kinda start to question if they really love you at all. Their attitude towards showing you love matters!
Do you think that God has a love language? Absolutely! God tells us multiple times that His love language is obedience. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15, ESV) This phrase is stated directly seven times (Deuteronomy 7:9, 10:12-13, 30:16; John 14:21; John 15:10; 1 John 5:1-5) and a myriad of other time indirectly, i.e. like when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham proved his love and commitment to God by his unquestioning obedience to God’s commandment, despite the difficulty of that obedience.
Christians like to say they love God. Well, words don’t mean anything if your actions don’t prove your words. So - do you love God? AKA do you keep God’s commandments? Do you want to keep God’s commandments, or do you look for excuses not to obey Him?
If you don’t think that you love God, because your actions say you don’t, then the question is, why not?! He has given you everything: life, a family, health, the air you breathe . . . we could sit all day naming things because God created it all.
If you think you do love God because your actions say you do, then the question is “How much do you love Him?” Do you love Him enough to do exactly what He says immediately? Do you “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”? Think about it. What you do - and your attitude about doing it - matters!
**God’s Guiding Hand
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:6
Materials: pencils
You can learn some very important principles by considering a pencil. First of all, in order for it to be useful, it has to be guided. Most people use their hand to guide the pencil to write. But some people use their mouth (Joni Erickson Tada) or their feet.
What guides you in your life? When you’re little, your parents guide you. They direct you, teach you, what is right and wrong, what will hurt you and what will help you. They show you how to do things. They teach you what you need to know in order to succeed. But how do your parents know how to teach you?
Many times moms and dads teach their children the way they were taught. If your mom was taught to ask to be excused from the table, she’s likely to teach you the same manners. If your dad was taught to listen when other people are speaking, he is likely to teach you the same courteous behavior.
And if the moms and dads are Christians, if they truly love God, they are likely to ask God for help, for wisdom, for guidance in teaching the children God has given to them. Because moms and dads love their kids so much and want the very best for them, their prayers are full of requests to God for help.
But Solomon says that it’s more than just asking for help. Solomon says, “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:6, KJV). This is more than just asking for help or wisdom or direction sometimes. This is turning over every area of your life to God, where God is the foundation of everything you do, and then relying on God to show you how to live your life.
It’s very much like this pencil. This pencil can do nothing until I pick it up. Whether I put the point to the paper to write, or I put it down because I’m done writing, the pencil does nothing that is not what I want it to do.
Now the pencil has no choice in the matter. But you do. You can choose to live your life seeking God’s will, doing everything for His glory and pleasure. And in order to know what pleases God, you have to be reading His Word and praying to God and talking to other people who love God.
Are you moving at the direction of God’s will in all areas in your life? Be like a pencil - doing all things at the will of the Master.
Based on : https://www.creativekidswork.com/all-ideas/117-77-five-lessons-a-pencil-can-teach-us
**Honor God First
Honor the LORD with your wealth . . .Proverbs 3:9
Materials: banana, napkin, knife
All good gifts come from God (James 1:17). Can you think of some wonderful gifts God has given to you? Life, health, a great family, plenty to eat, a pet, an answered prayer - many different things could fall into that category of being a wonderful gift from God!!
So what is your response to having been given a gift? First, you should always say, “Thank you!” We do that in our prayers at each meal - thanking God for the food. But are we diligent to say “thank you” when God gives us good things? I sure hope so!
But we should go one step further than simply saying “thank you.” We need to demonstrate that we are grateful to God by honoring Him first with whatever it is that we have.
A banana is a gift - you can tell because it’s gift-wrapped. 😀 When you open a banana, you get to decide what to do with it. Most people eat it one bite at a time. Even if you cut it in half and put it in a banana split, you still end up eating it one bite at a time. What if we used this banana to talk about how we should honor God first with the gifts that He’s given us?
Here’s the easiest analogy. I really want to give my husband a bite of the banana, but each person in the room wants a bite. And I find that the banana is all gone before I get to my husband. There’s nothing left for him.
Or what if each bite represented the time I have in each day? I only have 24 hours. Let’s pretend that I get to sleep 7 hours. I might spend 5 hours cooking, eating a meal, and cleaning up the kitchen. (Wow, that’s half of my day already!! No wonder it’s hard to get everything done.) Maybe I spend an hour doing paperwork and taking care of emails, although that could easily be two hours every day. Then I spend four hours teaching and checking homework. I spend one hour walking the dogs, feeding them, and getting them clean water. I spend another two hours cleaning the house, sweeping the floor, opening the curtains first thing in the morning, closing them at night, and watering the plants. If I have errands to run, that will easily eat up three hours because it takes 30 minutes to get anywhere and then get home again. I can be at the end of the day, ready to brush my teeth and fall exhausted into bed and there’s no time left to pray to God, to read His word and to think about His ways (meditation).
Have you ever heard the saying, “Give to God what’s right, not what’s left”? There’s a lot of truth to that! If we don’t make it a priority to give God the first chunk of our day, we can find ourselves at the end of the day with no day left to give. And that’s not good. That sends a message that He is less important than all the rest of the things in our day. And that’s not true! God is the most important part of our day. And our days will flow a whole lot smoother if God is first, if we start each day with Him, honoring Him, praising Him, and thanking Him for the gift that He has given to us.
Time is one of the gifts that God gives us. But it’s not the only gift. You can apply the banana analogy to any of the gifts that God has given to you. Make sure you say “thank you” to God for the gift He’s given by honoring Him first!
So Far As It Depends On You
Do not contend with a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm. Proverbs 3:30
I grew up reading westerns - Zane Grey and Louis L’amour. Occasionally there’d be a character who was said to be a bad hombre; he’d just as soon shoot you as look at you. Really? Someone who had such a grumpy humor that he’d rather kill the person in front of him than look at him? Wow!
The reality is we live in a society where, in some places, that characterization isn’t so far off. There are people who care so little for human life or for anyone other than themselves, they truly don’t care if they take that life needlessly, for no reason!
That phrase “for no reason” in this verse means, as an adjective, something done unjustifiably or fruitlessly. It’s the Hebrew word chinnam #2600.
But we would never do that! We would never take a life for no reason. Probably not. But we do contend with others for little or no reason. The word contend here is the Hebrew word riv or ruv (#7378) which means to toss, grapple, wrangle, quarrel, hold a controversy, conduct a legal case, to strive with words, to seize by the hair; it’s physical, verbal, or legal combat. The definition sounds pretty crazy; we’d never do that! My husband was an only child, so he never got to experience traveling with siblings. I did. I remember telling Mom, “He’s looking at me.” O.K. Now that sounds a mite sensitive to someone who’s never experienced it. But when you know the intent is to bother, someone looking at you bothers! Or we’d say, “He’s touching me.” “Did you touch her?” Mom would ask. “Accidentally,” the answer invariably was. Well, when you’ve had a silent war in progress so that “Mom doesn’t have to stop the car,” even an accident touch is suspect. Do any of these sound familiar to you, either as parents or children?
He took my pencil.
He’s reading my book.
He sat in my spot.
He’s got my ________________.
(or my particular favorite) He’s making puppets out of his hands.
It’s called contending for no reason. And the proverb emphasizes that it’s for no reason. He continues, “when he has done you no harm.” The word for harm is #7451; it’s the Hebrew ra. We’ve seen this word before. It means bad, inferior quality, wicked, evil, malignant, noxious, injurious, hurtful, unpleasant.
When someone has done you no harm, don’t contend with him for no reason. Don’t start an argument over something very trivial. Why? Because it very quickly escalates. You tap him. He hits you. You shove him. He gets up and shoots you with a .45! It escalates.
Or you put a toy snake in front of him. He short-sheets your bed. You put a hairbrush in his boot. He puts a firecracker in between the storm door and front door, which does more damage than you can possibly imagine! All because of a toy snake. Don’t contend with a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm. It escalates.
That’s human nature. Someone does something to me; I retaliate. He retaliates for the retaliation. It all starts out fun. But pretty soon there are people screaming and there’s blood and stuff.
Don’t contend with a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm.
Romans 12:18 says it this way: If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peacably with all. Stop the contention right now - before it goes any further. You be the one to eat the pride and the human desire to have the last word. As far as it depends on you, don’t start the conflict and don’t continue the conflict.
That’s hard. But God says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9).
Hate What God Hates
There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. Proverbs 6:16-19
Sometimes we try to convince ourselves that our sins, our unrighteousness, really isn’t that big of a deal. For example, some people think telling a little lie is no big thing: no one will ever know; it won’t really matter in the long run; it could save a lot of embarrassment right now. So we are willing to lie. But lying makes this list of things that God hates - twice! How unsurprising to find that the One who is Truth would hate lies.
But maybe God only has a simple aversion to lying. That’s what the word hate in vs. 16 can mean. It runs the gamet of meanings from simple aversion to strong hatred. O.K. we could argue perhaps it’s just a simple aversion, if it weren’t for the couplet: God hates and these things are an abomination to Him. That word abomination means morally disgusting, unrighteous, wholly despicable. There’s no wiggle room here; God hates this list of seven things.
So how can we learn to hate the things that God hates? First we have to recognize what He hates. Then we have to commit those things to our memory. Then, when we are tempted by our own evil desires and carnal nature to engage in these things, we stop. We stop the behavior that God hates - because we love God and we want a relationship with Him. If we engage in the activities that God hates, He won’t want to spend time with us. That’s not what we really want, not if we’re truly a Christian.
So, we read through the list. O.K. The six and the seven get our attention. Then two weeks later, we think, “What were those seven things that God hates?” We might remember lying because it’s mentioned twice. But what else is on the list?
We have to memorize it. There are a couple of ways to do that. First, think visually. Starting top down: eyes, tongue, hands, heart, feet, breathing out, sowing. We can do this:
haughty eyes
lying tongue
and hands that shed innocent blood
a heart that devises wicked plans
feet that make haste to run to evil
a false witness who breathes out lies
and one who sows discord among brothers.
The visual picture works. But there’s another tool often found in Hebrew writing. It’s the chiasm. When using the chiasm, the center point is the most important thought. Then the points on each side should mirror each other.
The center point of this list is: a heart that devises wicked plans. Wow! You know what, all of our actions, all of our thoughts, all of our words proceed from our heart. If our heart is not right before God, we devise wicked plans!
The points on either side of the heart are hands and feet. Our hands symbolize the things we do; our feet symbolize where we go to do the things with our hands. They both are synonomous with actions. And the actions we do spring from the heart. We are going to do good things and go to godly places if our heart is centered on Christ.
The points on either side of the hands and feet are the two points about lying. Really? Yes. The lying tongue mirrors a false witness who breathes out lies. It doesn’t matter whether you’re lying for yourself or lying against someone else, if it’s not the truth, it’s just plain wrong. And, interestingly, these two points are about our words. Our words can be good and life-giving or they can be evil, untrue and destructive. Again, our words proceed from the heart within us.
The farthest points out are: haughty eyes and one who sows discord among brothers. At first glance, these may not appear to be related. But think about it. If you are humble, are you likely to spread discord? Not likely. It is the one who believes himself/herself better than another, who is so convinced of their position that they are unwilling to give, to make allowances for anyone else. They are haughty. Here are our thoughts.
Each day I pray that my thoughts, words, and deeds will be glorifying to God. That’s what these three verses emphasize: thoughts - haughty eyes, sowing discord; words - lying tongue, false witness; deeds - hands and feet.
So in chiasm form, here’s what it looks like:
A. Haughty eyes
B. A lying tongue
C. and hands that shed innocent blood
D. A heart that devises wicked plans
C. feet that make haste to run to evil
B. a false witness who breathes our lies
A. and one who sows discord among brothers.
The chiasm is a wonderful memorization tool. I hope you use it to help you learn what God hates - so that you can learn to hate these things too.
**Get Away!
My mouth speaks what is true, for my lips detest wickedness. Proverbs 8:7
Materials: long stick, wool sweater, balloons, string
Can you think of something you absolutely detest or hate? Do you want that thing next to you, or, worse yet, touching you? No. If it is truly something that you find absolutely disgusting and despicable, you want the thing as far away from you as you can get it - like, yesterday.
Likely you have something in mind that causes you to make a face just thinking about it!
The ASL sign for “hate” is flicking the middle fingers off the thumbs in a “get away from me” motion.
If there’s something detestable, disgusting, despicable and downright yucky, you just want to take every evasive maneuver possible to keep it away from you - kind of like balloons you’ve rubbed with a wool sweater. Because they have the same kind of static electricity, they repel each other. So if you tie a balloon on each end of the string, rub the balloons with a wool sweater and then put the balloons over a long pole, you’ll see how they repel.
This is how we, as people who love God, should react to wickedness. The things that God has designated as wicked or evil, sinful and wrong - those are the things that we should want to avoid at all costs. We should be like the balloons which repel each other. We don’t want to go anywhere near wickedness.
So here’s the thing: you have to read the Bible so that you know what God says is detestable and disgusting. Then you’ll know what you don’t want to have anything to do with!
Wisdom
“for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.” Proverbs 8:11
What is beautiful?
What is excellent?
Can you name something lovely?
What is pleasant?
What is good?
Can you think of something morally good?
Wisdom is each of these things. The word “good” in Hebrew is “tov” (Strongs #2896). It means all of the above things. But where in Proverbs 8:11 do you see the word “good”? It’s the word “better,” as in good, better, best. It’s the comparative form of the word good.
Why is wisdom better than jewels?
James 3:17 says that wisdom is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. Wow! Wisdom sounds very desirable! But why would it be more desirable than anything else?
1 Corinthians 1:30 says that Jesus Christ became to us wisdom from God.
God the Father and Jesus Christ are wisdom. Therefore seeking godly wisdom is the same thing as seeking God - and there is nothing we desire which can compare with God.
**Integrity or Crookedness
The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. Proverbs 11:3
Materials: Ice cream, scoop, chocolate syrup, salt, bowls, spoons, bowl with salt dried on it, big bowl of water
Let’s use bowls and ice cream and salt to talk about Proverbs 11:3. “The integrity of the upright guides them” - If you are honest and try to do the right thing, your life will show that, and you will be blessed. “But the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them” - if you try to deceive people, you make a habit of doing wrong things and making bad choices, ungodly choices, you will not be pleasing to God, and in the end, you won’t be in His kingdom.
Would you ever compare your life to a bowl of ice cream? Well, you could. Mostly life is good and we enjoy it. But sometimes we make mistakes or bad choices - kind of like when you sprinkle salt over the top of your ice cream.
Knowing that there’s salt on your ice cream, would you eat it? Would you serve your mistake to someone else, someone unsuspecting? Do you have integrity (honesty) or are you treacherous (devious)?
So sometimes people try to cover up their mistakes by lying (and that’s crooked according to God) - kind of like when you cover the salted ice cream with chocolate syrup. The chocolate syrup will cover the salt, but the salt’s still there. Maybe no one will notice. Would you eat the mistake now? Would you serve it to an unsuspecting friend? The salt has tainted the ice cream just like lying taints your life. So do you cover up your mistakes with lies? If you cover up your mistake with lies, are you living honestly or treacherously?
Or would you try to fix your mistake? We could try to scrape off the top layer of ice cream, but what a waste of good ice cream. And isn’t life like that? Sometimes when we try to fix a mistake, it’s painful, even if it’s necessary. Fixing a mistake is part of living an honest life, a life of integrity.
But what if you have made a habit of that mistake? What if the salt is so caked on to the bowl that you can hardly scrape it off? What if you have made bad choices so long that they are caked on like layers of dried salt on a bowl? The good news for you is that Jesus can change you. Jesus can forgive you when you make a bad choice, and He can help you choose better next time. But you have to pray to Him and ask for His forgiveness. You really have to be sorry. And that’s kind of like what happens with the salt-encrusted bowl. The water washes the salt away.
Praise God that He has made a way for all of us to move from the classification of treacherous and crooked to the classification (in Christ) of honest and full of integrity!
Based on: https://overthebigmoon.com/an-object-lesson-for-kids-on-honesty/
Be Wise and Understanding
Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent. Proverbs 11:12
When I was little, very little, I remember Grandad teasing me. It hurt my feelings, and I was in a snit. Mom took me aside and told me that Grandad was only playing with me; his teasing was a way of showing me how much he liked me. She said that if he didn’t like me he wouldn’t tease me. In many cases, that’s very true. If people don’t like you, they won’t tease you; in fact, they will have as little to do with you as possible.
But teasing is not really what this verse is talking about. The word “belittle” was actually coined by Thomas Jefferson in the late 18th century, according to the dictionary on my Mac. He used it to mean “to make something or someone smaller.” The KJV is much more direct. What the ESV translates as “belittles,” the KJV translates as “despiseth.” But looking at both versions, we get a more accurate picture of what Solomon intended. That is, you can express how much you despise someone in what you say. But you can also despise someone in your heart, but never say anything to him out loud. When you belittle someone however, you do that verbally. It’s this speaking badly of your neighbor that Solomon addressed. We know that because of the second phrase: but a man of understanding remains silent. Hebrew literature often employs a couplet to emphasize the meaning: they are either parallel phrases or stand as opposites. In this case, the belittling is opposite remaining silent.
There’s another comparison in this verse. The one who belittles his neighbor lacks sense. This is contrasted with the one who remains silent. He is a man of understanding. The KJV is more direct than just with the word “despise.” He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace. Where the ESV says “lacks sense,” the KJV says “void of wisdom.” That puts a very fine point on it!!
But why would “belittling your neighbor” be Solomon’s focus. Why didn’t he say that belittling anyone is stupid? Perhaps we should define “neighbor.” For most of us, neighbors are those people who live next door to us or down the street. They are the ones who are closest to our home. They are the ones who see what happens at our house when we’re gone. They’re the ones who can call the fire department if our house catches on fire in the middle of the night when we’re asleep. They are the ones who see our dog wandering past their house and call to let us know. Why would we want to make an enemy of that person?! It’s in our best interest not to belittle them, to say things that are “fighting words,” to despise them verbally! To use the KJV, you’d have to be completely void of wisdom to say negative, demeaning, despicable things to your neighbor!
But is that the full extent of the definition of the word “neighbor”? The sign for “neighbor” in ASL is literally “close person, someone who is next to you.” Furthermore, when the lawyer asked Jesus who his neighbor was (Luke 10:25-37), Jesus replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus’ definition of “neighbor” was anyone with whom you come into contact. At this point, you may be tempted to think, “Why would it make any difference if I say unkind words to someone I meet in Wal-mart? I’ll never see them again.” Here’s where the wisdom or lack of wisdom becomes very apparent! You may never see that person again; that’s true. But what if you do? What if they turn out to be the person you have to get permission from to use the park pavilion for the next 4H picnic? What if they are the person who just happens to drive past your car that has a flat tire on the side of the road? What happens if they just happen to be the person who’s making your taco at Taco Bell the next time you stop? There’s still a chance you’ll run into that person again, somewhere, sometime.
But even if you don’t, you are an ambassador of Jesus Christ. Verbally tearing down a person is a terrible way to represent Jesus Christ. You don’t know the whole story. You don’t know why that person did that thing that caused you to react so hatefully. Belittling a person, whether you know them extremely well or not, is very foolish. As the ESV says, “Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense.” As the KJV says, “He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbor.”
So what about teasing? What Grandad was doing was good-natured and fun. And most of the time, the people around you will tease you because they like you. It’s enjoyable. It’s employing equivocation and plays on words. It’s a fun way to interact with your friends. But there is a teasing that crosses the line because it’s mean-spirited. It’s meant as an insult because you don’t really like that person or you feel resentful towards that person. Some people will make a joke about you, or tease you, and then say, “I was only joking” - like that’s supposed to make it all okay. It doesn’t take away the sting. In fact, it’s very manipulative. The person who does that expects you to take his insult and not say anything back because he just labeled his insult as a joke. You can answer him back, let him know that his “joke” wasn’t funny. But you both know it wasn’t intended to be funny. Most of the time, you just half-heartedly laugh and get away from him. According to Proverbs 11:12, in that case, who has more sense or wisdom? You do - because you remained silent.
Remaining silent is often equated with wisdom in Proverbs. It’s also trickled down into our sayings, like “It’s better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” I think of this saying a lot before I speak. If I don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s better to just be quiet. And if I’m upset at someone, for whatever reason, it’s a very good idea to think carefully about the consequences of opening my mouth, saying something very disagreeable, and removing all doubt to everyone around me as to the amount of wisdom I possess.
It’s a good reminder. Think very carefully about the words that you let pass your lips. Be wise and understanding!
Discipline, Correction, Rebuke, Chastisement
“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.” Proverbs 12:1
Solomon didn’t pull any punches with this proverb: if you don’t like correction, you are stupid.
Why? Proverbs 15:10 provides another commentary on reproof and stupidity. It says, “ . . . whoever hates reproof will die.”
There’s an attitude here. The phrase “whoever loves discipline” is contrasted with “he who hates reproof.” The word “love” is the ardent and vehement inclination of mind and tenderness of affection. It’s contrasted with “hate” - which ranges from mild aversion to intense hatred of a person, idea, word, or inanimate object. So what is your reaction to discipline, instruction, reproof? Is it intense dislike or love?
Although none of us likes to be wrong, none of us likes be corrected, and none of us likes to change direction, if we’re smart we’ll listen to those who are wiser among us. Oh, that’s hard. It goes against the grain. It hits at our pride and our independent natures. We always want to be right.
Do you remember the story Where the Red Fern Grows? In the book, the boy has caught the hunting bug and decides to set some traps around the farm. He catches a couple of his mother’s chickens. Oops! But he also catches the family cat, Sammy. So the boy moves the trap. The cat, who has been watching the boy, goes over to investigate and gets caught in the trap again. Within days, the cat is lying on the front porch with all four paws bandaged, but Sammy just can’t seem to leave the traps alone. He eventually gets so cranky and spooked that he won’t come to the house anymore and hisses every time someone gets close to him. He despised, or hated, reproof. The cat never learned.
That’s the concept projected in this term “discipline.” It comes from a Hebrew word (muwcar - #4148) which means chastisement, reproof, warning, instruction, correction, rebuke, check - a correction which results in education. Often it is oral, not corporal discipline. It’s when your mom sits you down and talks to you about the direction you are going. It’s not when your dad gets out the belt to apply the board of education to the seat of knowledge.
The proverb says if we love this discipline it’s because we love knowledge. That word “knowledge” is insight, intelligence, understanding, the knowledge gained through the senses. It’s the contemplative perception of a wise man. It’s the opposite of folly. The implication here is that, if we don’t love discipline, we won’t have the knowledge, discernment that will make life easier, the road smoother. But the knowledge gained doesn’t have to be the hard way - through pain and suffering and paddlings. It can be knowledge gained through listening to others.
Proverbs 5:12 depicts a old man who regrets that he hated discipline when he was young. If he had only listened when he was young, life wouldn’t have been so tough.
The next time someone tries to give you a word of advice, tries to correct your direction, listen to what they have to say. They could still be wrong because people make mistakes. But don’t let your pride and arrogance get in the way of knowledge which is to your benefit. Don’t hate the reproof. Don’t be stupid.
**Influences
Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Proverbs 13:20
Materials: cooked egg noodles, dishes, water, food coloring (As you talk through the points of the lesson, put different food coloring in the different bowls of water. Add an uncolored, cooked piece of noodle. Watch what happens the longer the noodle stays in the colored water.)
It’s really amazing how one of the proclivities of humans is to pick up the behaviors, attitudes, habits, and speech patterns of the people around us. You may know that a behavior is wrong, but if you continue to spend time with people who engage in that wrong behavior, pretty soon you’ll find yourself right in the middle of what you didn’t want to do. That’s why you have to make sure you get a rotten apple (or potato or orange) out of close proximity to the rest of them. You know the saying: one bad apple spoils the barrel.
It works that way with what we say too. If you spend much time around someone with an accent, pretty soon you’ll have picked up some of the sounds. Or if someone takes God’s name in vain and you spend a lot of time around them, pretty soon you’ll find yourself fighting really hard against it slipping into your speech patterns as well.
That’s why your parents are so adamant about what tv shows you watch, what music you listen to, and who your friends are. Whatever you spend your time around will influence you. That influence can be good or it can be bad, but you will be influenced.
That’s where Proverbs 13:20 comes in. If you spend your time with people who are wise, you will become wise. You pick up their habits. You begin following their thinking habits. Most importantly, if they are truly wise, they’ll be looking to God for direction - and you’ll learn to make God an integral part of everything you do.
On the flip side, Proverbs 13:20 says that the companion of fools will suffer harm. So someone who spends time with people who are foolish - they make bad choices, they don’t seek God’s ways, they are silly and arrogant - if you spend enough time with foolish people, you will regret it because you will get hurt.
Think about the things you do. Think about the places you go and the people you spend time with. You have the ability to make things go well and you have the power to end up in a world of hurt. But rest assured, God is not mocked: You can’t spend your time making poor choices without it coming back to hurt you. Just like the noodles absorb the color the longer they stay in the coloring, you will make bad choices into habits - and it will not be a good thing in the end. OR You can make Godly choices and avoid a lot of unnecessary pain. This is a good time of year to look at what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with. God gives us a yearly reminder to examine ourselves, to judge ourselves, before He has to.
Seems Like a Good Idea
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” Proverbs 14:12
Down through history there have been things people did that seemed like a good idea at the time:
*riding in a barrel over Niagara Falls
*using leeches to let out bad blood
*closing the windows at night to keep the toxic air out
*importing foxes and rabbits to Australia to have fox hunts
- and the list goes on. I would imagine you can think of a few yourself!
But the thing is, none of the above ideas turned out to be such a good idea. Most people who go over Niagara Falls are facing certain death, or at least severe injury. Using leeches stimulated that body to produce more blood, and that can be a good thing, but sometimes it just weakens the body even more. Night air is not toxic in and of itself. Foxes and rabbits are fun to chase, but they also reproduce rapidly. On a continent where there are no natural predators, rabbits and foxes have gone from being cute, to being a nuisance, to reaching epidemic proportions.
In Proverbs 14:12, the word “end” is Strongs #319 and means “latter, end, posterity, reward, the latest part, the future.” In this context, “end” and “future” are synonymous. According the Hebrew thinking, it’s like a man rowing a boat; he backs into the future. Therefore what is behind and what is the future are connected to the same root word. Although we may laugh at this mental picture of backing into the future, it’s actually fairly accurate. We don’t any of us know what the future holds and we kind of fall into it by chance. At least, that’s what happens to those who don’t seek God.
You see, Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” We don’t have to know the future; we just have to know the One who holds our future. Because, if left to ourselves, we’d find a way that ends in death for sure!
It’s the Pits
The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good. - Proverbs 15:3 (NIV)
Materials Needed: metal detector, binoculars, magnifying glasses
What if you lost something, what might you do to find it (other than go ask Mom)? You might look under things. You might ask others to help you search. You might get out binoculars - or a magnifying glass - or perhaps a dog. (Dogs can get great at finding thing, especially if they are well-trained.) Or maybe you could use a metal detector. But what if someone is trying to hide something from you on purpose? What if they are making it really hard for you to find what you have lost? Then what?
If you remember, we talked about Joseph and his brothers last week. There’s a lot here, so let’s talk about another aspect of this story today. Do you remember that Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son? That he gave him a coat of many colors? Do you remember that Joseph had two dreams in which his brothers bowed down to him? Do you remember how his brothers reacted to all of this? They were jealous to the point of hating Joseph! Then their hatred turned murderous. They were ready to kill Joseph. Do you remember that it was Reuben who wanted to rescue Joseph from death? Do you remember what they decided to do with Joseph instead of killing him? Then what happened? What die did they decide to tell to Jacob, their father?
It looked pretty desperate for Joseph. Hated by his brothers. Sold into slavery. He was all alone - or was he? We know from the story that Joseph continued to choose to live his life in a way that honored God - and God blessed him in everything he did. (But that’s a story for another day.)
Joseph’s brothers thought what they had done was hidden, but God saw it - and God sees you when you are in trouble. He doesn’t need a magnifying glass, or binoculars, or a dog, or a metal detector to find you. God never loses track of where you are. You may think that you are all alone. You may think that evil people or discouraging events have gotten the upper hand. But God is still sovereign. He’s still in charge. And . . . if you belong to Him, you can trust Him to work everything out for your good.
**Be Gentle
A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit. Proverbs 15:4
Materials: cards, toy cars
Have you ever tried to build a house of cards? Itʼs not easy, is it?! You have to be very
what? What words could you use to describe how you have to build the card house?
Maybe “careful.” Perhaps “deliberate.” Maybe “precise.” You also have to be very gentle.
Gentle means treating something with care, as if it were very fragile or very precious to you.
Even after youʼve built the house of cards, if you decide to drive your car around it, you
have to be very careful or gentle. If you hit a corner, the whole thing might collapse.. If you decide to drive through the house of cards, you have to be very, very gentle and precise and careful.
Can you think of things you have to be very gentle with? Kittens, puppies, babies.
Transplanting seedlings. Decorating cakes. There are many times in your life when you
have to be gentle in what you do. Otherwise, someone could really get hurt. Something
could be ruined beyond repair.
So in Proverbs 15:4, it says, “A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.” What does that mean? Does that mean you have to lick an ice cream cone very gently? Does it mean that you have to eat very gently? No. In this verse, “a gentle tongue” is another way of saying “the gentle or nice words you choose to
speak to someone else.” Think of how that definition works in this verse.
The Message puts it this way, “Kind words heal and help; cutting words wound and maim.”
In other words, the words that you choose to say to someone can either build them up or tear them down. You can speak gently and help someone, or you can be mean and cause irreparable damage.
Think very carefully both about what actions you choose and what words you choose. You want your words and actions to be beneficial to others, to help them, to be good. You want to be gentle.
**Tower of Trouble
Memory Verse: Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. - Proverbs 16:18
Materials Needed: deck of cards
Have you ever built a tower of cards? How many levels could you build before it all collapsed? Have you tried building towers out of any other materials? What works well? Doesn’t work well? What can you do to make your tower more permanent?
Why do people want towers? Sometimes they’re used to see what is coming. (But your tower has to be high enough to see over the trees!!) Sometimes they’re used to spot fires before they become blazing infernos. Sometimes the height advantage allows you to get your bearings and readjust the course of your travels.
In Genesis 11, this tower was proposed as a way for the people to do two things: 1) get honor for themselves; and 2) keep from being scattered over the earth. Why was this a problem?
God had given specific instructions to Noah after the Flood. They were to spread out over the earth to repopulate it. They weren’t supposed to congregate in a big city. So deciding they didn’t want to be scattered over the face of the earth was in direct conflict with God’s directive.
That unwillingness to obey God had its roots in their first reason for building the tower. The people wanted to make a name for themselves. They wanted glory and honor. They wanted to put themselves and their wishes and desires before God’s commands. Their glory and honor was more important to them than giving glory and honor to God.
Do you see how this applies to you today? Your desire to give God glory and honor before anything and anyone is demonstrated in your willingness to obey God’s commands.
The people of Babel were so very foolish! It hadn’t been that many years since the Flood when all of humanity, except Noah and his family, were wiped from the face of the earth. You would think that people would be very willing to do whatever God said. But, no. As Albert Einstein said, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.” Our sinful nature makes us stupid, infinitely stupid - so stupid that we think we can succeed in doing something God doesn’t want done. It’s like building a house of cards. There’s no way it will stand for long.
**Flopification
The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the LORD tests hearts. Proverbs 17:3
Materials: egg & hard-boiled egg; uncooked spaghetti & cooked spaghetti; raw potato & cooked potato
A memorable Curious George episode involved George watching a chef at work. When the chef put spaghetti or carrots or potatoes into a pot of boiling water, they came out soft. George deduced that it was a special flopification pot. He wondered what other things he could put into the pot to make them floppy. George got one thing right: hot water changes things.
There’s an idiomatic expression, “being in hot water,” which means that you’re in trouble. We typically conclude that someone who is in trouble, or hot water, with their parents or with the authorities has done something wrong, something that has earned them trouble. But trouble doesn’t always have to come when you’ve done something wrong. Sometimes trouble, or hot water, comes your way when you were simply minding your own business.
Nevertheless, how you respond to the trouble, or hot water, reveals a lot about what kind of person you are. A potato or pasta put into hot water becomes soft and pliable. An egg put into hot water is hardened. It’s interesting, though, that both are ready to be eaten after their experience in the hot water.
What about you? When you experience hot water, or trouble, do you become more pliable to God’s will, more sympathetic to others who are also experiencing trouble, more easily approachable? Or do you become a little harder - with a little more resolve and determination to do God’s will, to persevere through difficulties.
God knows just exactly what we need to mold us into the image of His Son. Sometimes it’s trouble. And although we’d really like to avoid the hot water, as long as we trust God and praise Him regardless of the trouble, or maybe because of the trouble, we’ll continue to be changed into the image of Jesus Christ.
Just something to think about next time you find yourself in a flopification pot.
**Be Joyful
A joyful heart is good medicine. Proverbs 17:22
Materials: a collection of silly jokes
Q. Do you know the little boy threw the clock out the window?
- He wanted to see time fly.
Q. Do you know what you get when you mix a rooster, a poodle, and a kangaroo?
- A cock-a-poodle-roo
Knock-Knock
Who’s There?
Amish
Amish Who?
You don’t look like a shoe.
Do you enjoy laughing? How does it make you feel? Do you feel better when you’re smiling or when you’re frowning? Do you feel heavier when you’re smiling or when you’re frowning? Most of us would rather be laughing than crying. It feels better. And there are a lot of comedians who make a lot of money because people want to laugh - at something! The funniest thing I have experienced in recent years was going to a Tim Hawkins concert. Tim was funny. But the silliest part of the whole evening was when they first came out to warm up the crowd. They said they were checking the sound system. So they told us to laugh like it was a moderately funny joke. Then they told us to laugh like it was really funny. Now imagine a whole auditorium full of people who are laughing. . . at nothing. It makes you laugh just because they’re laughing. Then when they told us to laugh like it was the funniest thing we’d ever heard, I thought I was going to cry because it was so funny! People belly laughing . . . over nothing. It was hilarious!
Laughing makes us feel better. Closely related to that is being able to do something we really enjoy. Something that brings us a lot of joy when we’re doing it makes us feel really good. Think of making a snowman after the first fresh snowfall, or jumping in a pile of leaves on a crisp autumn day, or playing in a creek in the summertime. What about eating a fresh peach straight from the tree or a handful of strawberries straight from the patch before they go into your bucket? What about drawing or coloring or writing a song or making up a new game to play with your friends? There are so many things which bring us joy.
But be careful. There are things in this world that look like they will bring you joy, but they are not Godly. If God wouldn’t have anything to do with them, you know they will not bring you joy in the end. Sometimes people tell jokes which are not godly, using bad words or which bring bad thoughts to mind. People may laugh at them, but they are not going to lift you up. They will not make you joyful. There are things you find to do which look fun at the start, but if they are not godly, you won’t find yourself having so much fun at the end.
It has been proven that people who are joyful are healthier than people who are grumpy. Don’t be a grump. Think about the blessings God has given you. Look for the funny things around you. Learn how to laugh at yourself - because we all do silly things at times. And spend lots of time with God and with God’s people. Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the LORD is your strength.” Find your joy in the Lord.
A joyful heart is good medicine. Proverbs 17:22
**What Do You Want To Hear?
and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. Proverbs 18:15b
Materials: noise-makers (whistles, recorder, harmonica, wooden blocks, balloon, spoons, scissors, marbles)
The ear is an amazing thing! With just your hearing, you can determine so much information about a thing: what is it, where it is, perhaps the size, how close it is to you. You can distinguish between someone hitting the table and clapping their hands. You can tell whether the person who snapped their fingers is next to you or clear across the room. You can tell whether the balloon is being inflated or deflated. You can tell whether a recorder is being played or a harmonica. All from the sound you hear. And! As you get older and you become a parent, you will get really good at knowing exactly what your children are doing even when you aren’t in the same room with them. If your teenage son, for instance, gets up at midnight for snack, you’ll be able to tell that he got a knife out of the drawer and smothered a piece of bread with butter before opening the refrigerator and pouring himself a glass of milk. Much to his amazement, your sense of hearing becomes really acute when it comes to your kids’ activities.
But besides information, sound can either irritate us or bring us a great deal of pleasure. The dripping of a faucet or the ticking or a clock can keep you awake at night and make you think you’re losing your mind. The sound of a brook tripping merrily over the rocks brings a smile to my face. The rattling of the car keys excites my dogs. Speaking French is a guaranteed way to transform a sleeping Pepper to a barking, excited Pepper. But speaking French to you doesn’t get you all excited!
People (and dogs) react differently to the sounds they hear. And logically, if you like a sound, you’re going to want to hear it. If you don’t like a sound, you’re going to want to avoid it. I don’t like the sound of conflict and fighting. I don’t like the sound of breaking glass. I don’t like the sound of my children coughing or vomiting. I like to hear the birds singing. I like the sound of canning jars sealing. There’s a satisfying pop which tells you that you’ve succeeded in preserving that jar of harvested vegetables or fruits until you need them next winter. I like the sound of my friends and family talking and laughing.
And God tells us here in Proverbs 18:15 that, if we’re wise, our ear will seek knowledge. We will want to hear what is true and just. We will seek out God’s ways and His direction in our lives. We’ll be hungry to listen to His word being read. So here’s the question: What do you want to hear? What do you desire to listen to? Are you seeking knowledge? That would be the wise thing to do.
**A Valuable Friend
One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin . . . Proverbs 18:24
Materials needed: a bottle of water
How much is a bottle of water worth in the store? About 18¢ But if you go to a baseball game, you’re likely to pay $6.50 (Really! I looked it up!!) O.K. someone might pay $6.50, but not me. I’m not willing to pay those kind of prices for water - unless it’s a really, really hot day and I don’t want to miss any of the game and I really, really, really need a drink of water. But if the person next to me has a bottle of water from Walmart that they’d sell to me, I’m NOT paying $6.50 for a bottle of water! If, however, my choice is spending $6.50 for a bottle of water or drinking straight out of the Mississippi River, I’m going to be buying that water.
The water is worth more or less depending upon how much water is available and how much you need it. The more you need it and the less that is available, the more the price goes up. Just ask any driving adult about current gasoline prices!
So what is a good friend worth? A good friend is one who loves you as you are, but wants to help you do better, grow, learn, and achieve new heights. They come when you need help. They give you good advice. They pray for you. They always point you toward Jesus Christ! What is a good friend worth? He or she is priceless! And it doesn’t matter how many good friends you have, each one is valuable. Each one is precious! A good friend doesn’t become less valuable if you have two other good friends, or thirty, or 300. Each one is important and valuable.
But make sure that each friend is truly a good friend. An unreliable friend doesn’t help you when you need it. They might talk about you behind your back. They might say mean or disrespectful things. They don’t pray for you. They don’t want to talk about the Bible with you. They don’t build you up; in fact, they probably will get you into a lot of trouble. If you were comparing an unreliable friend to water, it’d be like drinking straight out of the Mississippi River. Yuck!
Choose your friends wisely. They’re worth a whole lot more than a $6.50 bottle of water.
**Hasty
The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. Proverbs 21:5
Materials Needed:
one dozen raisins
clear drinking glass
clear soft drink (not flat)
sheets of paper
pencils
rulers
“Haste makes waste” is a phrase that has been around for a very long time. Similar to it is the adage: “measure twice, cut once.”
Let’s say a project needs a slice of paper 4 inches by 11 inches long. You can guess where to make your cut, or you can measure four inches carefully. If you measure a little too wide or a little too narrow, you may have to start all over again. The problem is, you won’t know if you’ve cut too little or two much until you are halfway through the project. Starting over again means that you’ve lost all that time. If you had measured twice, you could have cut once and known that it was right.
Here’s another demonstration about hurrying.
Drop the raisins into the clear soft drink in the clear drinking glass. The raisins will fall to the bottom of the glass. At the bottom, they will gather carbon dioxide which causes them to float to the top. At they float upward, the carbon dioxide will escape from the soda (bubbles burst) and the raisins will sink toward the bottom again. This demonstration works best if you have fresh, dark raisins and room temperature soda. (You can also do this with peanuts, buttons, uncooked spaghetti; the small objects will gather the bubbles and float.)
Sometimes our lives feel very similar to these “dancing” raisins: we’re running around doing things without much real progress to show for it. We hurry, hurry, hurry and we seem like we’re getting a lot done. But we’re actually wasting a lot of time. If we would
- stop and consider what we’re doing,
- whether it needs to be done,
- what the consequences could be of our actions,
- what outcomes we want to achieve,
- and a logical, sequential way of achieving them,
we’d be more likely to have the desired outcome in the least amount of time. What Solomon says in this proverb is that being hasty often results in poverty. When you don’t take the time to do things right, you end up losing money. Since this proverb, and many of the proverbs, is written in parallel style, the opposite of hurry is diligence. Be thoughtful. Consider your ways - and you’re likely to be prosperous.
However, if we only rely on our own intelligence and strength, we can still find ourselves having to start over on projects or having to retrace our steps from having gone the wrong way - wasting time. It’s always a good idea to ask God for His direction in our lives, praying that He’ll open or close doors and show us the path He wants us to take. We should be willing to listen to counsel from people who love God and are good counselors. We need to spend time thinking about our actions. It’s better not to live our lives like chickens running around with our heads cut off . . . or dancing raisins.
Source: Science and the Bible, 30 Scientific Demonstrations Illustrating Scriptural Truth, Donald B. DeYoung, 1997, pg. 35.
***The Law of Unexpected Consequences
Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble. Proverbs 21:23
Materials: six marbles
If I line marbles up in a crack on the table and then flick the one on the end, what will happen? The energy will transfer through each of the marbles and the last one will move. It’s actually very cool how energy will transfer through objects.
It’s what happens when we say something to someone else. I tell Christopher good morning and happy sabbath, he gets up. He says good morning to his dad, his dad smiles and says good morning back to him. Jonathan hears the good mornings going around and thinks he’d better get moving too. Soon both boys are ready to go to church and come ask me if they can help get everything in the van. All because I said good morning to Christopher, the day moves forward in a positive manner. This is much like flicking the first marble with my finger and the last marble moving. Right? Isn’t that how it happens in your house? Well, not exactly. O.K. Maybe only in my dreams.
What happens in reality is like the line of marbles on the table, without benefit of the crack to keep them going the way I want them to. Now when I flick the first marble, who knows where they’re going to go. The energy is transferred to the next marble in line, but without the constraints of the crack, they go in all directions. Furthermore, if I were to recapture all of them, line them up again, and flick the first one again, it’s more likely that they’ll go different directions the second time than it is that they’ll repeat the earlier path.
That’s what happens with our words. I can tell Christopher good morning and happy sabbath. That doesn’t mean he wants to hear good morning and happy sabbath. He might have wanted me to let him sleep an hour longer. It’s hard having a summer job. Or depending on how I say good morning, Christopher may say good morning or he may feel like he’s just been hit by a mack truck of sunshine and happiness.
Or let’s say that Christopher does say good morning and gets out of bed. Just because I said good morning doesn’t mean that that’s what he’s going to say to his dad. And Jonathan’s reaction to the noise could be positive. But he could also be thinking about working 40 hours this past week and wondering how soon he can go back to college.
I am fictitiously using my family as an example of how my words can have consequences that I would never imagine. But all levity aside, we need to be very careful about the words we use. We can’t erase or delete. Once they’re said, they’re out there - whether they produce good things or cause hurt and chaos.
It’s a good idea to be very careful about the words we use. If you can keep or control your mouth and tongue, you can keep yourself out of a lot of trouble.
**Bursting the Balloon
The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it. Proverbs 22:3
Materials: balloons (Blow up a balloon until it bursts to start the lesson with a bang!)
When blowing up balloons around younger children, it’s obvious who has seen the balloon blown up too far - so that it bursts! The child will cringe or put his hands over his ears. He knows what is coming. He has become prudent when it comes to blowing up balloons.
There are many times in life when the prudent see danger coming and they take steps to avoid it. Perhaps it’s a fire on the verge of burning out of control. Perhaps it’s a car driving erratically on the highway. Perhaps it’s a slow leak on a tire. Perhaps it’s a snake or skunk or wasp nest. The prudent see the danger and do something to avoid this danger. The simple don’t - and they suffer for it.
Know anyone who has sprayed lighter fluid on a burning fire? Know anyone who has gotten too close to a skunk or a wasp nest or poison ivy? Know anyone who wasn’t paying attention to the gas gauge and ran out of gas?
So how do you become prudent? Sometimes we become prudent (aka gain wisdom) by our experiences. The young child who experienced a bursting balloon covers his ears. The person who meets a skunk and is sprayed subsequently keeps their distance from skunks. But experience can be a hard, painful teacher. So where else can you gain wisdom?
Your parents have had a few more experiences than you have. It’s a good idea to listen to them. Proverbs 4:1 says, “Children, listen to the instruction of a father, and be attentive in order to know insight.”
People who are experts have had a lot more experience in that particular area. They are a good resource. Proverbs 11:14 (WEB) says, “Where there is no wise guidance, the nation falls, but in the multitude of counselors there is victory.”
God is a great source of wisdom. In fact, the Bible tells us in James 1:5 (ESV), “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” The Bible with the leading of the Holy Spirit is often how God gives us wisdom for our daily lives.
We don’t any of us (usually) intentionally choose courses of action which we know will cause us to suffer. But do you make it a priority to get wisdom so that you can be prudent?
**Greed
and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite. Proverbs 23:2
Materials needed: jar, coins
and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite.
What? Why would Solomon tell us to take drastic measures if we like to eat? If we don’t eat, we don’t get the nutrients our bodies need to sustain life. In other words, if we are not given to appetite, we’re going to die.
Well, “given to appetite” doesn’t simply mean that you eat to keep from starving to death; it means that you eat too much. It’s gluttony or greed for food. In the context of Proverbs 23, it’s wanting something you shouldn’t, desiring the king’s delicacies. And being greedy - whether it’s food or possessions - is not a good thing. People don’t like to be around someone who’s just out for what he can get. On the other side of the coin, there’s no such thing as a free lunch; there are often strings attached to the things you want. Greed can bring serious consequences.
One of the most powerful children’s books I know of is Where the Red Fern Grows. In it, Billy’s grandpa tells him a surefire way to catch a raccoon: drill a hole into a log, pound nails in at an angle, and put something shiny at the bottom. The raccoon will put his hand in to get the shiny thing but won’t be able to pull it back out because of the nails. If he would just let go of the shiny object, he could easily pull his hand out. But he won’t do it. He wants that shiny thing too much. So Billy would be able to catch and kill a raccoon so he could train his dogs to be raccoon hunters.
It’s a poignant lesson. A raccoon will go to his death because he’s too greedy.
So what are you greedy for? What is it that you want so much that you won’t let go of it even if there are serious consequences? Even if it means you hurt someone else’s feelings and ruin that relationship?
There’s a good reason why Solomon warns against greed - and it’s something you should really take to heart - or at least, it’s something to chew on. 😁
**Wisdom
My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste. Proverbs 24:13
Materials needed: tomatoes, honey
Do you like honey? My sister keeps bees, and we are the delightful recipients of her honey harvest. It is sweet. But Solomon wanted us to know more than the fact that honey is good and sweet to eat. Solomon uses the experience of tasting honey and finding it sweet to help us understand how very sweet wisdom is.
13 My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.
14 Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
Have you ever heard this distinction between knowledge, understanding, and wisdom? Knowledge is knowing the fact that something is a tomato. Understanding is knowing that the tomato God created the tomato as a fruit. Wisdom is knowing that God’s purpose for tomatoes does not include putting a tomato into fruit salad.
I would take this distinction one step further. You see, there are people out there who rely totally on man’s wisdom, not Godly wisdom. There is a man who identifies himself as a dog. He doesn’t seem to have the knowledge of what makes a human and what constitutes a dog. He doesn’t have the understanding that God created him the way he is. And he doesn’t understand his purpose to act as a human would act. He spends his time acting like a dog. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6269051/My-partner-dog-transgender-man-identifies-canine.html) And that is an example of man’s wisdom vs. God’s wisdom. 1 Corinthians 1:25 says . . . “the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom.” Indeed, man’s wisdom, or what he thinks is wisdom apart from God, is sheer foolishness.
But God’s wisdom? Oh, it is good. It is sweet to your soul. Seek Godly wisdom. Seek God - and He’ll give wisdom to you freely. And you will taste just how good and how sweet it is!!
**Sweet Like Honey
Know also that wisdom is like honey for you: Proverbs 24:14
Materials: honey, spoons, slices of lemon
Have you ever eaten a handful of SweetTarts? Most people kinda like the sweet and sour combination. But what if it was just sour? Not many of us will overeat on lemons. Oh we like a little bit of the sour. We might enjoy the pucker of the sour, but I don’t know anyone who intentionally eats another not-quite-ripe persimmon after having inadvertently eaten one. The sour sets our teeth on edge. It upsets our stomach. It puckers our mouth. And in the case of persimmons, it puts hair on our teeth. But honey? Oh, people have gone to war over a honey tree. Seriously! Look up the honey war in northeast Missouri from 1839. According to Wikipedia, Before the issue was settled, militias from both sides faced each other at the border, a Missouri sheriff collecting taxes in Iowa was incarcerated, and three trees containing beehives were cut down. [The border dispute] was ultimately decided by the United States Supreme Court in Iowa's favor.
Solomon uses a very vivid simile (wisdom is like honey) so that we can get a glimpse of how important wisdom is. It’s valuable. It tastes good. It’s desirable. He even says in Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” When you recognize that God is sovereign, He is overall and in control, then you begin to show Him the respect and honor that He deserves. And, Solomon says, that’s just the beginning of wisdom.
So why is there so much emphasis placed on wisdom and getting wisdom? It must be that people don’t like wisdom. They prefer to muddle along ignorant and stupid. (Only in Missouri are those terms synonymous; in most other places, there is a distinction.) Why would people not desire wisdom? Don’t they understand that wisdom is the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; that it makes life work more smoothly? It doesn’t make sense! So the Proverbs are full of statements about wisdom: Wisdom helps you live longer (Proverbs 3:16); wisdom is more valuable than rubies, jewels, or gold (Proverbs 3:14-15; 8:11; 16:16;); wisdom gives insight, honor, wealth, justice, and righteousness (Proverbs 18:12-21). Solomon goes to great lengths to earnestly entreat us to diligently seek to gain wisdom.
In the end, perhaps the most powerful appeal is to our taste: wisdom is like honey. In this case, it’s a very good practice to acquiesce to, and even indulge, our sweet tooth!
**When You're Under Pressure
for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity. Proverbs 24:16
Materials: test tube, 2-liter clear soda bottle, water
Here’s a very cool site which explains what’s going on and how to set up the experiment: https://www.superchargedscience.com/opt/cartesian-driver-pc2-con2/?inf_contact_key=6efa472fbc74e68c91528aae54c8795bb7af0999dac2af6212784c39e05d2aef
Have you ever wondered how a submarine works? It can’t be that they get rid of all their oxygen because then the sailors wouldn’t be able to breathe. No, rather, the submarine takes water into storage tanks, compressing what air is in the submarine into a smaller space. This makes the density of the submarine greater than the density of the water around it. Consequently, the submarine sinks.
This is basically what is done with a test tube and soda bottle. Fill the bottle with water. Fill the test tube about 4/5 full of water, place your thumb over the end and invert into the soda bottle. The top of the test tube should be just a little above the soda bottle. (It might take a few times to get it just right.) Make sure the soda bottle is completely full of water and secure the top. Then when you squeeze the bottle, the air in the test tube is compressed and forced into a smaller space in the top of the test tube. This allows more water to fill the test tube, making it heavier and the test tube moves to the bottom of the bottle. When you release pressure on the bottle, the air is allowed to decompress, the test tube gets less dense, and it shoots back up to the top of the bottle. Pretty cool.
What happens when you’re under pressure? You lose a tooth and on the way to show your mom, you drop it, and now you can’t find it. Your cat gets lost. Your grandparent is very sick. The family car is in the shop and you can’t go on the field trip you were looking forward to. There are lots of things that go wrong in our world. It’s part of living in this world. Your reaction to the stressful things says a lot about who you are.
If you belong to God and know Him, or rather, you are known by God (as Paul told the Galatians), then you have hope. You have the support and encouragement of God. You rely on the promises of the Creator of the Universe. And you can get up again, every time life knocks you down.
But, if you don’t know God and are not interested in following Him, obeying Him, and having a relationship with Him, you’re still going to experience getting knocked down. But then you have to depend on yourself to pick yourself back up again. And sometimes that just doesn’t work.
If the test tube didn’t have any air in it, it would sink to the bottom of the bottle and there’d be nothing it could do to get to the top again. The test tube having air in it gives it the ability to absorb the pressure and then pop back up to the top again. It’s a cool reminder that if you love, obey, and seek God, He can help you to endure. If you don’t love, obey and seek God, you’re sunk.
**Prepare Your Field First
Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house. Proverbs 24:27
Materials needed: unsnapped green beans, quart of beans (anything that will show a process)
Two summers while I was in college, my sister and I worked in a chocolate factory. It was mind-numbing work - as most factory work is. One day my sister thought of a solution: she would just turn her chair around to face me and work left-handed from my table so that we could talk. You can just imagine, two girls with chocolate-covered hands, making 12 candy bars a minute - entertaining the whole room with our conversation! We decided to do one of those stories where you say a sentence and leave it at a cliff-hanger and pass the story back to your partner. I don’t remember how the story started. I just remember that we ended up with two schnauzers wanting to paint their catapult turquoise. The only problem was that it hadn’t been built yet. So the schnauzers solved that problem by throwing the paint where the catapult would be built.
When I read this verse in Proverbs 24:27, I think of the painting of that catapult. You see, there’s an order necessary in doing things well. I can’t can my green beans until the jars are washed and the bean washed and snapped. But I can’t snap the beans until they’re picked. And I can’t pick green beans unless I plant them and weed them and water them and keep the critters from eating them. Even just canning the green beans before they’re washed and snapped means that I’m not going to achieve the best outcome.
Think about what Solomon is saying in this verse: It’s going to take some time for the field to be prepared and planted. Once it’s planted, you’ll have time to build your house while you’re waiting for things to grow. If you build your house first, you may not have time to get your field planted before the season turns. Then you end up with a house and no food. Not the most desirable outcome.
But somehow, I suspect that Solomon was talking about more than growing food and having a roof over your head. This principle also applies to working for God. You love God and you want to do great things for Him. That’s wonderful! But there’s an order here too. If you want to shine your light for Jesus Christ, you had better know what He stands for and what He desires for His followers to do and believe. How can you encourage others to have a close relationship with God when you don’t have one yourself?! You want to do great things for Him? Then read your Bible, come to church and listen to what’s being said, pray and ask God for guidance and wisdom. Be prepared to give an answer for the hope that lies within you.
Prepare your heart and mind by nourishing it with God’s Word, fellowship with believers, and prayer time with God. Then you’ll be a tool God can use to bring other believers to Himself.
Prepare your field first and then go build your house.
Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house. Proverbs 24:27
Hide and Seek
It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. Proverbs 25:2
Kids love hide-n-seek, treasure hunts, exploring paths, mazes, and yes, sometimes even math problems. There is something very satisfying about finding something worthwhile. Sometimes it’s treasure at the end of the path; sometimes it’s the process of getting there that has the most value.
I suspect Solomon was not talking about treasure hunts in this verse: It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out (Proverbs 25:2). I suspect that he was talking about the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom required to govern well. I suspect that he was thinking about building projects and godly judgment in legal matters. It’s the knowledge of how to build the temple, or the pyramids, or Hezekiah’s water tunnel. That tunnel is still a remarkable engineering feat - to dig through solid rock from both ends and come together in precisely the right spot: amazing! Or should I say, blessed of God? Because that’s really what we’re talking about. There is a right way to do something. God has designed things to work in a certain way, and when you work to figure something out, you’re working to figure out what God has designed.
Therefore, in its application, this verse encompasses more than governing people as their king. It is a truth for all of life. There is a right way to do most things and when you seek to do it the right way, it works better. Baking cakes, felling trees, changing oil in the car, installing phone lines, playing the piano, washing clothes, playing Minecraft. All of these things work best on principles that God designed - because He’s the Creator. We just take what He’s created and we rearrange the pieces. But all of the underlying principles, all of the foundation pieces, are based on God’s creation. So if you keep digging, seeking, trying to understand how things work, you can often find treasures of information to make it all work better.
For instance, gardening. You can just throw some seeds into the ground and see what happens. But you might want to learn a little more and apply a little more wisdom if you want to make your effort worth your while. You might want to water your garden. And while you might understand that it’s important to water them every now and then, do you know how much is too much? What is so little that it does no good? What time of the day is the best time to water? Why? Then there’s the soil. What do I do with the soil before I plant? Should I till or should I disturb the ground as little as possible? Should I add anything to the soil, and if so, what? What time of the year should I plant? What if I plant too early and we get a frost? What can I do to save the plants? Which plants are hardy enough to withstand the cold? What happens if I plant too late? What is too late? What should I do about bugs? Then there’s the whole concept of what to plant next to what. Did you know that some plants don’t get along very well with their neighbors? If you want a garden to grow well, it’s important to take that into consideration when you’re setting out your plants or sowing your seeds. Then, once the garden is planted, what do you do about weeds? Do you hoe and till every week? Or should you mulch? Is it better to mulch with hay or with wood chips? Wow! So many things to investigate! But the reward for finding the right answer can be a bountiful harvest of wonderful things to eat. When you plant the garden, you are anticipating eating good things, but if you make wise choices, seeking out the best way to garden, you can find more treasures than you expected!
Truly, there’s a lot to know about almost anything that you choose to do. You can spend a lot of time investigating and learning. Or you can take an attitude of “I don’t really care. I just want to get it done.” It’s the “it’s good enough for government work” attitude. And that’s really sad. It’s really too bad, and extremely distressing, that our society has devolved to the point where doing a shoddy job is equated to working for the government. That’s not the kind of government that had the wisdom to build the pyramids or Hezekiah’s tunnel. That’s not the kind of government which demonstrates its reliance on God and His principles. That kind of government is not interested in searching out things to make sure they will work in the right way. That kind of government is seeking their own glory, but, in the end, they will find no glory at all.
It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out (Proverbs 25:2). There’s another proverb which fits very well with this one: The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps (Proverbs 19:9). You can make all kinds of plans. You can try to do all kinds of things. But if you are not seeking God, His ways, and His will, your plans will not amount to, in gardening terms, a hill of beans. If, however, you seek God and His ways and search things out, you can find more treasure and glory and joy than you ever expected.
It is the glory of God to conceal things. Shall we go see what we can find? I’m in.
**Be Self-Controlled
A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. Proverbs 25:28
Materials: wide-mouth jar, plastic bowl, empty toilet paper roll, tennis ball
{Place the jar on a table. Put the bowl on top of the jar. Stand the toilet paper roll in the middle of the bowl. Place the tennis ball on top of the roll. This is a great physics experiment for teaching laws of motion. But we’re going to use it for self-control.}
How can I get the ball into the jar without touching the ball? It’s a very “controlled” action. I have to hit the bowl just right, knocking it out of the way and allowing the ball to fall straight into the jar. If I tap the bowl, the ball just falls off the roll and the bowl just falls off the jar. Similarly, you can imagine what will happen if I hit the bowl really hard! The bowl and jar and ball will go flying! That doesn’t accomplish my goal either.
But if I firmly hit the bowl, the bowl flies out of the way, allowing the ball to drop right into the jar.
The degree to which I hit the bowl is analogous to my self-control. If I merely tap the bowl, it’s like being too lazy to put much effort into a task. Nothing much happens if you don’t put effort into a job.
On the other end of the spectrum, if I really hit the bowl hard, sending everything flying, it’s like the man who has no self-control. He gets angry very quickly. He gets overly excited over little things.
What does that look like? If I give you an envelope of stickers, you show little self-control if you stick them all over the walls, your Bible, your mom. It’s inappropriate behavior. It’s not right and it doesn’t end well. That’s like hitting the bowl too hard. But I can give you an envelope of stickers and ask you to make a picture with them. If you won’t even open the envelope, that’s like tapping the bowl. It isn’t anywhere close to accomplishing your goal. You don’t want either extreme. You don’t want to hit the bowl too soft or too hard. You don’t want to put stickers all over, but you do want to complete your job. It’s kind of like the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” isn’t it?!
You want to be just right - not too hard, not too soft. You want to be self-controlled.
Adapted from: https://www.futureflyingsaucers.com/self-control-object-lesson-joshua-7/
**Remove Yourself From the Situation
Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down. Proverbs 26:20 (NIV)
Materials: play-doh, matches
Have you ever had an argument with someone? Silly question, right? We have disagreements, arguments, fights, contention with the people around us all the time. Sometimes it’s a legitimate disagreement over the available facts. But sometimes it’s just our opinion.
But something makes a disagreement even worse - if you talk about that person and how wrong they are to other people. That’s called gossip. And gossip is never a good thing. It can cause a lot of hurt feelings and it can accelerate a quarrel between people.
So King Solomon gives a good piece of advice: just like a fire goes out if it doesn’t have wood (or fuel) to burn, so a disagreement will die down if you don’t keep talking about it. But go one step further: if you can, step away from the argument completely.
Here’s a dramatic way to show how that works: Line up matches in a row with the non-burnable ends in the play doh, standing the matches straight up. Put a gap in the matches. Then light the end match. When the fire gets to the gap, it will not jump to the next match.
Similarly, when you remove yourself from the situation, i.e. refuse to continue an argument, refuse to gossip, refuse to keep contribute something flammable, you’ll be removing the fuel which keeps the fire or the quarrel going.
That’s not easy to do sometimes. It’s hard to put my hand over my mouth when I want to say something snarky. It’s hard not to roll my eyes out loud in response to a comment. It’s very tempting to pass along a juicy story to someone else. But, in the long run, it’s just better to remove myself from the situation and refuse to engage.
**An Explosive Situation
As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife. Proverbs 26:21
Materials: film canister with lid, water, and effervescent tablets
What happens if you have hot embers and you add charcoal to them? The charcoal quickly catches on fire and you have more heat. What happens if you have a fire and you add dry wood to it? The wood catches on fire and creates a bigger fire.
This proverb compares these two situations to a quarrelsome man kindling strife. There’s already some sort of conflict going on. If you add someone who likes to argue, what happens? The quarrel doesn’t go away. It doesn’t die down. A person who likes to argue, who is often looking for a fight, only causes the conflict to get more heated.
Here’s what that looks like: Put a small amount of water into a film canister. Drop in half of an effervescent tablet (like Alka-Seltzer). Put the lid on. Within minutes, the top blows off.
There’s a couple of similarities between this demonstration and a quarrelsome person in an argument. First, you don’t know when the blow up is coming, but you know it’s inevitable. Secondly, just as the explosions makes a big mess, a quarrel that gets out of hand makes a big mess - damaging relationships, sometimes irrevocably. Third, once the explosion happens, you can’t get it back in the container again - not all of it. In a similar way, once a quarrel grows into a blazing confrontation, it’s very hard to get it contained. There will be lasting consequences.
So. What should you do? When you have a conflict, try to resolve it before a quarrelsome person gets involved. If that’s not possible, don’t engage. If the effervescent tablet is the quarrelsome person, and the water is the quarrel, don’t put them together into the container. That is, if you can, remove yourself from the situation. What good can possibly be gained from engaging in a discussion/argument/conflict with someone who just wants to argue?
There are going to be times when you can’t avoid a conflict. There will be times when you just can’t get away. So let’s compare the lid of the container to emotions. If you don’t cap the situation with emotions, you’re less likely to have a big explosion. It may bubble over and still make a big mess, but an overflow is better than an explosion any day.
We’re going to find people in this world who just want to argue. Use Godly wisdom to avoid unnecessary big explosions.
Timing is Everything
Whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing. Proverbs 27:14
There’s a fun skit called “Is It Time Yet?” Multiple kids are lying on a full-sized bed. The one on the end says, “Is it time yet?” The question is passed from child to child all the way down. The last child says, “No, it’s not time yet” which gets passed all the way back to the first child. They all pretend to go back to sleep. This is repeated a couple of times. Finally the answer is “Yes” and after it gets passed all the way down, the last child rolls over, causing each child down the line to roll over, which causes the last child to be rolled off the bed.
As silly as that sounds, timing is crucial in so many things! And Ecclesiastes chapter 3 says there is a time for every activity under heaven. That is, there’s an appropriate time to do things.
You wouldn’t put your houseplants outside right before a hard frost.
You wouldn’t drink a lot of caffeine right before you wanted to sleep.
You wouldn’t drink two liters of water right before leaving on a long car trip.
You wouldn’t turn on the television, with the volume turned up, in the middle of the night when everyone is trying to sleep.
You wouldn’t put your clothes in the dryer halfway through the wash cycle.
You wouldn’t roll down your car window in the middle of a deluge of rain.
You wouldn’t tell everyone a secret that you know shouldn’t be told.
There are all kinds of things that are not bad necessarily. But it’s important to do them at the right time. One of Solomon’s proverbs is “Whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing.” It’s not wrong to bless your neighbor. But loudly blessing your neighbor, early in the morning when everyone is trying to sleep, just isn’t going to be well-received. It’s not going to go over well!
But this verse could go deeper even that not having the right timing. Proverbs 29:5 says, “A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.” The two Hebrew words “flatter” and “bless” are totally different, but it’s a cautionary reminder that if you are going to praise someone, make sure that it’s accurate. It’s not inflated.
Sometimes, in our eagerness to share news or our excitement over something that means so much to us, we forget to stop and think what is happening in the life of the person with whom we want to share. We don’t think about other people. We don’t consider their feelings. We just don’t think about our timing. And timing is definitely important.
**Iron Sharpens Iron
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17
Materials: unsharpened pencils, pencil sharpener, knife, steel
It’s amazing what you can learn from a pencil, and I don’t mean because of what it has written on your paper. Last week we talked about how a pencil must be guided by a hand in order to be useful. Similarly, we must be guided by God’s hand in order to be useful to Him.
But what if my pencil isn’t sharp? Is it still useful? Not as a pencil. Not really as an implement to convey knowledge. You could use the eraser, if it had one. You might be able to make some sort of marking. But really, if a pencil is going to transmit knowledge efficiently and effectively, it has to be sharp.
In the same way, as the people of God, if we aren’t sharp, our usefulness to God is limited. What do I mean by that? God gave us a job - to spread the gospel of the good news of Jesus Christ. But what if we don’t know what that means? What if we don’t know anything about God - or at least not enough to be able to tell others about what an awesome God we serve? What if we don’t know what God expects from His people? What if we aren’t sharp?
If a pencil isn’t sharp, we can put it in the pencil sharpener. But a “sharp” pencil isn’t the same kind of “sharp” as a “sharp” person. It doesn’t work to put a Christian in a pencil sharpener. But it does work really well to put a Christian in a Christian sharpener. That’s where the memory verse comes in: Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17).
Have you ever seen how a knife is sharpened? You can use a whet stone. Or you can use a steel. Both of them are knife sharpeners. How well do you think it would work to hit the knife at a 90º angle against the steel? Hopefully you can see how that would not only make the knife less sharp, it could also irreparably damage the knife. You hold the knife at an angle to the steel. The steel little by little takes off some of the blade, the burrs, until there is an edge on the knife, a focused edge, a very sharp blade.
That’s how it works with Christians. As we talk with one another, using the Bible as our guide and final authority, we take off the burrs until we have a very focused edge. God uses each of us to help make one another sharper - and therefore, stronger - as Christians. Then we are of much greater use to His glory.
You know, there are some pencils that I don’t use because they aren’t sharp. There are some knives that I don’t use because they aren’t sharp. In fact, with both pencils and knives, when they are very sharp, they are functioning just like they were designed to function, and they are a delight to use.
I wonder if God feels the same way about us. We want to be used by Him. If we are sharp, if we know what His Word, the Bible, says; if we are able to apply His Word in the situations around us, then we can be very useful to Him.
Learn to talk with other people about God. Don’t just talk about your favorite toy, your favorite video game, your favorite movie, or your favorite potluck item. Talk about God. Be sharp for His glory.
Based on : https://www.creativekidswork.com/all-ideas/117-77-five-lessons-a-pencil-can-teach-us
**What’s Inside
As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man. Proverbs 27:19
Materials: cup, water, tube of cream/toothpaste
I was sitting on the porch this morning, drinking a cup of hot tea. The cat was very interested in what I had inside that cup, so interested as to become quite insistent that I let her see what was inside. If I had spilled some on the porch, she certainly would have known what I was drinking.
What causes you to spill what you’re drinking? If the cup is too full or your arm gets jostled, the liquid will slosh out. Isn’t that why travel mugs have lids? The unsettledness of a trip almost certainly will cause your drink to spill! When you have to clean up the mess, it becomes very apparent what was in the cup!!
We are very much like a cup of liquid. People don’t know what is inside unless we let them see. But even seeing doesn’t always give an accurate determination of the contents because people often allow others to see only what they want them to see. . . . unless something unexpected happens. If your life hits some turbulence and causes you to be shaken, what is inside spills out. It’s another way of saying that when you’re under pressure, when you’re squeezed, whatever is inside will come out. You show your true colors.
So perhaps you’re thinking the remedy is not to allow yourself to be ruffled, to be placed in a position of turbulence. In this life, Jesus told us, we are going to have trouble. We’re going to be under pressure and experience stress. Someone is going to hit our cup and what is inside is going to spill out.
Make it your goal to become like Jesus Christ, to be transformed into the image of the Son of God, so that when your life is shaken, people see godliness. Isn’t that what they’d expect to see from a true follower of Messiah, an ambassador of Christ, a child of God? You bet.
As For Me and My House
“If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.” Proverbs 28:9
There was a sitcom in the 70s: “I Dream of Jeanie.” It was pretty far-fetched and silly, but at some level, we are attracted by the idea of a genie in a bottle that will give us whatever we want whenever we want it. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s the view we have of God. We act towards Him as if He were a genie in a bottle who merely exists to give us everything we desire.
We look at verses like Proverbs 28:9 and read them this way: If I listen to the law, then God will hear my prayers. So if I do the law, then God will favorably answer my prayers. In effect, we delude ourselves into thinking we can force God to give us what we want when we want it - if we’ll just keep His law.
That’s not the God we serve.
This verse really is taking about attitude and relationship. When you read Proverbs 28:9, you can see the attitude! You don’t want to hear God’s law because you want to do things your way. And this attitude can be found at every level: society, country, state, city, family, individual. If society wants to do their own thing, why is it they still turn to God and want Him to fix things when they’ve gone awry?!
The attitude you have towards God and the things He wants you to do indicates how important your relationship with Him is to you. If you completely don’t want to do God’s will, then He’s obviously not very important to you. If you want to do God’s will in every area of your life, then He’s very important to you. But most of us fall somewhere in between the two ends of the spectrum. We have a lackadaisical attitude: I’ll do this when I have time. We want to follow God’s way when it’s convenient. We are lukewarm Christians. And you know how Jesus felt about those who are lukewarm!!
I want to be passionate about God and doing what pleases Him. I want that relationship with God. I want to stand with Joshua and say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:14-15).
Seek Godly Wisdom
Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe. Proverbs 28:26 (NIV)
James Dobson, in his book, Bringing Up Boys, makes the comment that the biggest challenge in raising boys is keeping them alive until they’re eighteen. Maybe. But I know that unwise or reckless behavior is not reserved for just boys. The first time I ever heard the phrase, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” was when Mom came outside to stop me from doing something where I almost surely would have gotten seriously injured, if not killed. And I was fifteen at the time!!
Another time I was home alone (which is okay when you’re seventeen), and I decided to make doughnuts as a family treat. I got the oil I was frying the doughnuts in too hot. Now what do you do when you’re too hot? How do you cool off quickly? You jump into a swimming pool or creek. You use cold water to cool you off. Using cold water to cool off boiling oil is not a wise thing to do. I picked up the kettle and put it in the sink and turned on the water. When the cold water hit that boiling oil, the oil exploded all over me, all over the kitchen. I had little blisters all over my face, hands, and arms. And then I was too scared to finish cooking doughnuts, so now I had a huge mess to clean up before Mom got home - oil and doughnut batter.
It is actually a wonder that we humans don’t kill ourselves off from doing unwise things. Ever wonder how they know that things are toxic or poisonous? Well, probably because someone somewhere along the line decided to try it out. Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I ate this? Not a wise thing to do.
I’m quite certain you could talk to any adult in the room and hear stories (plural) of the unwise things they’ve done - and the consequences they’ve suffered because of those unwise, foolish choices.
Thankfully, our God promises to give wisdom to anyone who asks for it. And since that’s the case, take advantage of it. Don’t go to your cousin Joe and ask him how to do something based on human wisdom. Don’t listen to your friend’s well-thought out solutions based on human reasoning. Don’t look to society, Hollywood, or politicians who want nothing to do with God. Avoid unnecessary pain and foolishness. Go to God and ask Him for wisdom.
***Don't Let It Slip Through Your Fingers
. . . but blessed is he who keeps the law. Proverbs 29:18
Materials: rulers
Have you ever checked your reflexes trying to catch a ruler dropped between your fingers? Someone holds the ruler between your first finger and thumb. They don’t tell you when they’re going to let go of the ruler. You have to react quickly enough to catch the ruler. Having done this with my fourth graders over the years, one thing becomes very apparent: if you know something is coming, you start anticipating. Many of the students completely missed the ruler the first time. But it didn’t take very long before they were catching it very quickly. They were no longer letting the ruler slip through their fingers.
Reading Proverbs 29:18 brought back the memories of the ruler reaction experiment, The first half of this proverbs is translated several different ways:
Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; (NIV)
Where there is no vision, the people perish (KJV)
Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, (ESV)
Without guidance from God law and order disappear, (Contemporary English Version)
In other words, when there is no revelation from God, when the people don’t know what God is doing (now and future), when they don’t see God’s guidance - something happens: the people cast off restraint, they perish, law and order disappear. The phrase that is translated “cast off restraint” literally means that the people ignore an opportunity, they dismiss, they lose something. So putting both phrases together, you could restate it this way: When you don’t have a vision for God’s ways in your life, you let His ways slip through your fingers. God’s laws don’t seem important because you don’t look for His purpose and plan.
Now this makes perfect sense because this proverb, like many of them, is a contrasting proverb. The first half is the opposite of the second. And we know it’s a contrasting proverb because of the word “but” which starts the second phrase.
Check it out. Is the first phrase of “When you don’t have a vision for God’s ways in your life, you let His ways slip through your fingers” the opposite of the second phrase of “but blessed is he who keeps the law”? Yes. They are opposites!! If you let God’s laws slip through your fingers, life will not work well. But if you keep God’s laws, you will be blessed; life will work well. And! As you keep God’s laws, you acquire more and more understanding of His ways. Pretty soon you don’t want to let any of God’s ways slip through your fingers!