Proverbs Day 3

Proverbs 3:30-32 ~

Don't walk around with a chip on your shoulder,
   always spoiling for a fight.
Don't try to be like those who shoulder their way through life.
   Why be a bully?
"Why not?" you say. Because God can't stand twisted souls.
   It's the straightforward who get his respect. 

I really love the way The Message paints a relevant picture of this passage! Do you know people like this? Always ready to fight over one thing or another? They think they know it all and refuse to believe they might be wrong about something. It looks like God and I are on the same page in our opinion of them, too. They are bullies and the world is full of them. Wherever you go, they are surrounding you. In the grocery line. In traffic, for sure!

Just a couple of moments ago, in fact, I was in the turn lane getting ready to pull onto my street when the person coming the other way drove by practically leaning out of his car yelling and waving his arms angrily at me as if I had just done something terrible to him. I was just waiting my turn to go, right where I was supposed to be! I didn't cut him off, wasn't in his lane, and his behavior left me more than a little perplexed. What on earth was he seeing me do that angered him so much? I think I was just there to be angry at. Nothing more. People get really bold and selfish when they can hide behind a certain level of anonymity. But I can't help but imagine what kind of guy this is to be around under the best circumstances, much less the worst. My heavens, what would he do if I really did make a driving mistake in his presence?!

I am an observer and I quietly watch people all the time. I see so many people walking around like bombs with lit fuses and they're about ready to blow. They think the world owes them to take a back seat to them. They're angry when they're slighted in the smallest degree. They just want to disagree. How is that any way to live? I think the truth is that they're miserable and they want everyone within a five mile radius to be miserable, too.

It's sad really, because at the root of all that ugliness is a twisted soul. Twisted. Interesting word choice there. There are several definitions for this word, but the one I believe applies here is this: to cause to become mentally or emotionally distorted; warp. That's a revelation! That sounds like the specialty of that old serpent of old, doesn't it?

There is this conditioning of the masses to believe we should be aggressive and take whatever we want and we that we shouldn't have to wait one second for it. We're taught that we have to assert ourselves to be respected. You definitely don't want to go the other extreme and be too passive, but it's getting a little extreme these days.

Yet God favors the straightforward person. As in meaning free from crookedness or deceit; honest. It's a mad, mad world out there, and this is precisely why we need the wisdom of God's Word. It will teach us how to live above the lower level nonsense. Over and over again throughout the book of Proverbs, there are a plethora of descriptions of what constitutes a fool. But there are just as many descriptions of how not to be one.

It comes down to our choice to live under God's blessing or outside of God's blessing. It's kind of like being under an umbrella in the rain. You still feel the wetness of the rain coming down, but the umbrella will keep the majority of it off your head so you can see where you're going. Likewise, renewing your mind with the word gives you direction and keeps you from falling prey to the twisted lies of the enemy.

Stay under God's umbrella of wisdom and you'll be alright, come what may.