When you read Proverbs 1:20-33, you discover that wisdom is no secret. “She raises her voice in the open squares. She cries out in the chief concourses, at the openings of the gates in the city she speaks her words” (vv.20-21). If wisdom is being skilled at life, then one might ask why it is so elusive? The problem is not a lack of knowledge or the information we need to be wise and live well. The problem lies in the power of desire. You do what you want to do. You pursue what you desire. When it comes to principled, noble living “I can’t” is more accurately put “I don’t want to.” “How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools hate knowledge?” (v.22). The history of humanity provides vast empirical verification of the condition of the human heart. Here is how Todd Brewer put it looking at recent history:
Neither [the] global pandemic, the gross injustices, the racial tensions, the mad riots, the macabre political theatre… should have shocked anyone, especially those schooled in the Torah and the prophets. All human history, from Cain and Abel onward, has amply demonstrated that destruction and stupidity, navel-gazing and bloodshed, the ubiquity of fools, and the thin veneer between civilization and anarchy is the norm, not the exception.+
The chief problem of humanity is not environmental, medical, political, educational, or philosophical. At the root of all human folly and brokenness is a disordered love cemented by stubborn pride, “they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD” (v29). Our original parents were deceived into thinking they knew better than God, so they transgressed His loving boundaries, and that self-preeminence is inherited by each one of us.
What is usually not factored in when we are bent on doing our own thing is the law of sowing and reaping, “they shall eat the fruit of their own way” (v.31).Furthermore, complacency in human folly is devastating. “It’s my life” is the most destructive statement a person could say or think (v.32).
It does not have to end there. Thankfully, by God’s grace, there is an alternative in a life well-lived. It is not arbitrary, nor is it simply bound up in my heart waiting for me to follow. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (v7). It is a choice you must make to live the alternative to what is normal in this existence under the sun. Don’t be normal. Because “whoever listens to me [wisdom] will dwell safely and be secure, without fear of evil” (v33). In the Lord alone is true and lasting life and peace. That is how Jesus comforted His followers saying “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful” (John14:27).
Transformed love comes through surrendered trust in the One who made you, loves you, redeemed you, and reconciled you. The more you walk with Him and delight in Him, the more He changes your affections and attitudes to reflect His. Your highest function is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut.6:5).
___________________
+“The Church in 2020,” Mockingbird (10-16-20)