Watch where you are walking

When you are out walking or running it is important to make sure you are watching where you are going. This is not just in terms of your overall direction, but also to be aware of where you place your feet. It may seem like a simple process to follow, but it can be so tricky at times. If you look too far into the distance you can step into a hole or catch your foot on a rock. It takes skill to keep both the distance, and the path, firmly in your eyesight. 

Is this perhaps what the writer of Proverbs 4 is suggesting?

"Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.
Give careful thought to the paths for your feet
and be steadfast in all your ways.
Do not turn to the right or the left;
keep your foot from evil." - Proverbs 4:25-27

Thought: How are you managing with your spiritual walk at the moment? Are you perhaps looking too far into the distance and missing the individual steps you need to take right now? OR, is your vision so consumed with a small step in front, that you have forgotten to look to where you are heading?

Living in Grace

D3LM3

Use your whole body

Did you know that applying wisdom in our daily lives requires using all of our senses - actually using our whole body and not just our minds?

I didn't quite connect those dots, until I read Proverbs 4 very slowly. When you read through these words from Solomon, notice the words that are underlined (by me) and see how obeying God is much more than just listening. We need to response with our whole being.

"My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words.
²¹ Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep into your heart,
²² for they bring life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body.

²³ Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

²⁴ Avoid all perverse talk; stay away from corrupt speech.

²⁵ Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you.
²⁶ Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path.
²⁷ Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil." - Proverbs 4:20-27

 Billy Sunday - “The Bible will always be full of things you cannot understand, as long as you will not live according to those you can understand.”

Living in Grace

D3LM3

Wisdom's advice

In Proverbs 4 the writer urges the next generation to treat wisdom with the utmost respect. As a caring parent shares advice with their children, because they desire the best for them, so the author wants the readers to live a blessed life by listening to God-fearing wisdom. 

We are not told if the ‘parent’ in these verses has learnt these lessons the hardway, but there is every likelihood that this is true. Sometimes wise advice is most profound when it comes from our own school of broken dreams and real failures.

“Don’t turn your back on wisdom, for she will protect you.

Love her, and she will guard you.

Getting wisdom is the most important thing you can do!

And whatever else you do, get good judgement.

If you prize wisdom, she will exalt you.

Embrace her and she will honour you.

She will place a lovely wreath around your head;

She will present you with a beautiful crown.” – Proverbs 4:6-9

Charles Spurgeon - "Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom."

Living in Grace

D3LM3

Time waits for no person

"You may delay, but time will not!" - Benjamin Franklin

"Time and Tide wait for no man." - Geoffrey Chaucer

It struck me again this morning, that I will never have control of Time in the sense that I can't speed it up or make it slow down. Time is time, and it will wait for no one. However, what I do have control over is how I use the Time given to me and how I direct my diary. This is what I will be held accountable for in the end. If I procrastinate today, then I miss an opportunity to use my time effectively.

Proverbs 4:10-11 (Message) -  Dear friend, take my advice; it will add years to your life. I’m writing out clear directions to Wisdom Way, I’m drawing a map to Righteous Road. I don’t want you ending up in blind alleys, or wasting time making wrong turns.

Living in Grace
D3LM3

What are you Guarding?

Joshua 23:11 - “Now, vigilantly guard your souls: Love God, your God."

We have alarms to help guard our homes and our many possessions; we have Car-guards to help protect our cars at church or at the shopping centres. We have armed guards at airports and banks to protect us from dangerous criminals. 

But, at the end of the day, this shows us what we value the most. Because what we don’t have is “soul-guards!” or people motivated to GUARD what is inside our hearts. Yet it is our hearts that can determine the whole course of our lives.

 Proverbs 4:23 - Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. 

 Luke 11:28 - Jesus commented, “Even more blessed are those who hear God’s Word and guard it with their lives!”

Living in Grace

D3LM3