Vol. 6, No. 44 – October 31, 2021
Found, A Better Way!
Proverbs 1:5-7
Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise, and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. –Proverbs 1:5-7
You probably have noticed how often the use of the Proverbs has entered these writings over the past year. Proverbs is a great book for both encouragement and instruction. It ought to be high on our reading list. I recommend the book highly.
Our progress in the Lord is often from the dissatisfaction of letting things go the way they are going. Acorns were good until bread was found. –Sir Francis Bacon. Wonder if he had the same thought toward bacon? The majority of us have our blunders because of our propensities to not consider what God says in the midst of our planning or scheming.
We tend to think if we do not succeed, try again. Our problem, here, is that we do the same thing over and over, thinking things will be better, but we get the same results. Perhaps our self-instruction ought to be if you do succeed under God’s purview, you are ripe to try something that would seem to be harder under God’s guidance! There is no mistake so big as the mistake of quitting after your “victory lap.” The least that we should do under God is to improve.
Do not question all your friends for the answers to your problems unless you are willing to search the Scriptures. Doing so will reveal God’s answers and you will not have to rely on friends’ opinions (including your own). Zig Ziglar often couches what he has to say in keeping with the principles of Scripture: The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra. The “little extra” is God’s instructions.
There is always a way to advance with God. It is a better way—reliable, honoring, glorifying, and representing the truth of His Word. When we find that way in His Word, we need to look again, for what we discover is awesome for our lives. Living under God never allows for breaks of learning like the vacation kids get from school. Living under God is a full-time “occupation.”
The deeper we go in God, the deeper He goes in us. A wise man will hear and will increase learning (Proverbs 1:5). The enemy of best in God’s economy is “good.” If you are simply satisfied with good, you will never experience what is better—the best under God.
Life Application
It’s what you learn after you know it all, that counts. –John Wooden.
An individual that thinks they know it all has merely stopped thinking. One who thinks they have arrived is left behind and is a couple of french-fries short of a Happy Meal. Those who seriously follow after God are always continuing to explore what God has for them to do, while at the same time remaining on God’s teaching track.
When believers think they should be sitting on their rusty dusties after many years in the church, Thomas Edison has something to say: Show me a thoroughly satisfied [person], and I will show you a failure.
There are two kinds of [people] who never amount to very much: those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else. –Cyrus H.K. Curtis.
Our commitment, as a believer, is to obey God and operate in His better way. God always has a better way for His child!
