“For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD.”
– Proverbs 8:35
Hi James and Ellen,
Between wisdom and folly, which one is finding ways to become your best friend? Solomon – in Proverbs 8, makes the case for you letting wisdom become your best friend. Why would you want to let wisdom be your best friend? Why would you not want to let folly be your best friend? Do you think that you can let both wisdom and folly be your best friends? Do you think that wisdom and folly are best friends? Do you know who the friends of wisdom are? Wisdom’s friends are prudence, understanding, discernment, knowledge, sound judgment, discretion, power, counsel, truth, love, honor, enduring wealth, prosperity, righteousness, just and life. Do you know who the friends of folly are? Folly’s friends are simpletons, fools, silver, gold and ruby hoarders, wickedness, arrogance, pride, malevolent behavior, perverse speech and death. God created wisdom to be a proactive influencer in God’s eternal matrix that He has been unfolding with no beginning and will continue to unfold with no ending – making wisdom a witness of everything that has taken place, is taking place and will take place on planet Earth and in the universe. Wisdom saw God place stars, suns, moons, planets and galaxies into empty heavens. Wisdom saw God choose one of the indefinable masses to embed massive watersheds, to insert springs for a future watering and drinking and to assign mountains, hills and meadows to the land areas. Wisdom saw God consign rain filled clouds between the horizons of the sky. Wisdom saw God assign boundaries to the seas. God has given wisdom the mission of instilling a reverent fear of Him and influencing a revolting hatred for everything that is evil. Wisdom is a king’s guide for his reign. Wisdom is a ruler’s guide for making laws that are just and fair. Wisdom is God’s craftsman. Wisdom has an open door policy. Wisdom is always waiting to bless a guy, gal or kid who is heedfully listening to and following her heeding. Verse 35 says, “For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD.”
Because wisdom will be such a good and helpful best friend if a guy, gal or kid will let wisdom be his or her bests friend, why do you think that a guy, gal or kid will at times let folly to be his or her best friend? While wisdom uses patience to underpin a heartfelt friendship, folly will use impatience to get under the skin of a guy, gal or kid. Because wisdom is the path to hope, folly is using all her available resources to bomb that path in order to make wisdom’s hope path as impassable as possible. Even though wisdom has an in with God in ways that will have God blessing a guy, gal or kid with an internal soul peace and joy, folly uses immediate physical self-gratification to trick a guy, gal or kid into succumbing to her wiles. So – are you letting wisdom be a best friend or are you letting folly capture your mind with promises of instant wealth, lots of authority and name recognition?
Your grandpaa knows that he needs to let wisdom be his best friend but . . . your grandpaa knows that he has made choices, that he has said things and that he has had thoughts that have been folly driven. Folly never stops looking for an opening to create turmoil while wisdom is always waiting for the moment to offer tranquility. Folly incurs unloving reactions while wisdom invites loving preventions. When folly tries to disguise herself as wisdom, she can be easily exposed because wisdom does not do self-promoting. Your grandpaa has been for several years arguing that the Christ-follower body has become dogmatically challenged because church leaders have acquiesced to trying to satisfy the emotions of a guy, gal and kid through performance focused singers and instrument players and through placatory style messages. Your grandpaa does not enjoy at all music sung and played loudly, strobe lights flashing every which way and a preacher trying to convince your grandpaa that your grandpaa has not yet quite arrived because . . . which has left your grandpaa not wanting to go to church services. When your grandmaa and grandpaa were living in Colorado Springs, Colorado, your grandmaa and grandpaa went to a church where there was an expository teaching pastor. Steve Holt – the pastor at Mountain Springs Church, would teach through a book of the Bible verse by verse. Your grandpaa looked forward to going to the Colorado Springs church every Sunday morning. The church – Lakewood Baptist Church, where your grandmaa and grandpaa are now going to most every week here in Gainesville, Georgia has two different church services each Sunday morning. The first service – which is the service that your grandmaa and grandpaa are going to, is called a traditional service. Dr. Tom Smiley – the pastor of this church, tends towards teaching in an expository way but . . . your grandmaa and grandpaa – even though they have been going to this church for a while, still feel like they are sitting in someone else’s seat. The second service – which your grandmaa and grandpaa went to the first Sunday that they went to this church, is called a contemporary service. The first service is held in a formal church setting while the second service is held in a large rambling type structure. A large choir sings hymns during the first service. A worship team performs during the second service. Pastor Dr. Smiley wears a suit and tie during the first service. Pastor Dr. Smiley takes off his tie before he preaches during the second service. It is very easy anymore for your grandpaa to see folly in everything. Your grandpaa finds it very easy to let folly’s cynical and/or sarcastic spirits take over what he is thinking or saying.
Proverbs 8 (1112)