“A prudent (wise) person sees the evil, and hides himself; but the simple (foolish) pass on and are punished.” KJV “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.” NIV
The teaching in this proverb is that a wise person knows when to stop when he, or she, sees danger. I thought of some ways that we can apply this lesson to our lives. When we face temptations to sin, we need to stop, pray, and ask Jesus to give us the wisdom and the moral strength to stop instead of going on to our hurt. A foolish person will plunge into sin without giving a thought to what the result might mean in his, or her, life. Once we give in to Satan, we do not have an “undo button” to erase bad decisions. We can thank God that Jesus will forgive us, but there will be scars. I heard Dr. R.G. Lee give an illustration of the effect of sin in our lives: He said that you can pull a nail out of a fence post, but there will be a blemish in the post where you pull it out. Perhaps the Lord has led you to this article to help you say “no” to temptation and not plunge into sin. We need to stop, think and pray when we are going through the inevitable trials of life. If we are not careful, we will give in to the temptation to blame God for the trial. If we are not careful, we will give in to self-pity. I can tell you from experience that “pity parties’ do not result in any good. Every moment that we spend giving in to self-pity is a wasted moment. I think of people who just go through life feeling sorry for themselves, making their own lives miserable, and making everybody around them miserable. A prudent, or wise, person will stop, think and pray and ask God to be with him, or her, through the trial. When we do that, we come out spiritually and mentally stronger than when we give in to life’s inevitable trials. We need to stop, think and pray when we are dealing with difficult people. After fifty-six years in Christian ministry, I know a little about dealing with difficult.people. I found that if I would stop and pray for them, I would not give in to an argument. I have learned at least four things in my experience with difficult people: (1) There are some people who are just difficult and you have to love and accept them as they are. (2)I have learned that God has brought difficult people into my life to teach me to be patient. (3)I have learned that some of these people are trying to teach me something about myself. (This is the most difficult one to take.) (4) I have learned to stop, think and pray when I might be the difficult person. (This is another hard one to take.) I guess I could list many more lessons that I have learned from this proverb, but the three that I have dealt with here will give us all something to work on for the rest of our lives. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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