The Sadness of Proverbs

Proverbs 17 is highlighted with a lot of gray. That is a bad color in my highlighting legend. Fighting, fools, gossiping, and evil inclinations. Maybe I haven't paid close enough attention to the previous chapters, but this one has stood out in the hall of fame in sad workings of the human heart. 

However, there is a tender morsel found at the very end if the chapter: Proverbs 17:27-28

Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, 

and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. 

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; 

when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent

Restrains is a good word. A parallel is found in James - "Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger". In Proverbs 10, you'll find this: When words are many, transgression is not lacking,  but whoever restrains his lips is prudent. 

The formula is an easy one- Words + Large quantities = Sin. 

Back to restrain. Of course, re is back, while stringere means to tie or pull tight. In the Hebrew, there are many variations, but I found the verse here:

We can see the ways it's used consistently with the verses above. Restrain is an active, intentional doing and in no way passive. Diligence and Discipline is required and sought. Uphold me according to your Word. 

Knowledge, Understanding, Wise, and Intelligent anchor the end of the four verses. May they anchor me today. 

Spurgeon Brings The Wood

It's a shame I've just recently stumbled upon Spurgeon's Classic "Morning and Evening". 

It's a gold mine of wisdom and pleas to both God and the saints. 

Psalm 19:13 the Psalmist is pleading with God to keep from presumptive sins- willfull disobedience. 

Spurgeon writes, "Our evil nature, like an ill-tempered horse, is apt to run away. May the grace of God put the bridle upon it, and hold it in, that it rush not into mischief"

Further on in the March 16 Evening devotional he writes, "The whitest robes, unless their purity be preserved by divine grace, will be defiled by the blackest spots."

His final plea for us to never be too sure we can will ourselves from sin is in this gem: "Ye whose love is fervent, whose faith is constant, whose hopes are bright, say not, “We shall never sin,” but rather cry, “Lead us not into temptation.” There is enough tinder in the heart of the best of men to light a fire that shall burn to the lowest hell, unless God shall quench the sparks as they fall"

Fantastic piece and spot on. We cannot hope to be victorious without the faithful hand of God upholding us in his grace and mercy. 

Screwtape on Humility

Screwtape examines the virtue of Humility:

Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble’, and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt—and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don’t try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.

But there are other profitable ways of fixing his attention on the virtue of Humility. By this virtue, as by all the others, our Enemy wants to turn the man’s attention away from self to Him, and to the man’s neighbours. All the abjection and self-hatred are designed, in the long run, solely for this end; unless they attain this end they do us little harm; and they may even do us good if they keep the man concerned with himself, and, above all, if self-contempt can be made the starting point for contempt of other selves, and thus for gloom, cynicism, and cruelty.

From The Screwtape Letters

On Meekness

His (Paul) meekness was something God-given, not something man-made. It is not our nature to be meek. On the contrary, it is our nature to be proud and haughty. That is why the new birth is so essential to each of us. 

“Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion;”

Ephesians 4:22

Reading from Proverbs 16 this morning, it is a chapter focusing on wisdom and words.

More...

And even more…

And two different verses in the 16th chapter, the author notes that words can be persuasive when spoken well. Not manipulatively with articulation but with gentleness and Grace. 

Lord, uphold me according to your word and let my words fall like rain on dry ground.

CS Lewis Letter

TO ARTHUR GREEVES: On his brother’s admission to an Oxford hospital, for treatment of alcoholism; and on the meaning of vicarious suffering, or what Lewis will call, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the “Deeper Magic,” mentioned above in his letter to Sister Penelope, 19 November 1941.

2 July 1949

Thanks for your most kind and comforting letter—like a touch of a friend’s hand in a dark place. For it is much darker than I feared. W’s trouble is to be called ‘nervous insomnia’ in speaking to Janie and others; but in reality (this for your private ear) it is Drink. 

This bout started about ten days ago. Last Sunday the doctor and I begged him to go into a nursing home (that has always effectively ended previous bouts) and he refused. Yesterday we succeeded in getting him in; but alas, too late. The nursing home has announced this morning that he is out of control and they refuse to keep him. 

Today a mental specialist is to see him and he will be transferred, I hope for a short stay, to what is called a hospital but is really an asylum. Naturally there is no question of a later Irish jaunt for me this year. A few odd days here and there in England is the best I can hope for.

Don’t imagine I doubt for a moment that what God sends us must be sent in love and will all be for the best if we have grace to use it so. My mind doesn’t waver on this point; my feelings sometime do. 

That’s why it does me good to hear what I believe repeated in your voice—it being the rule of the universe that others can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves and one can paddle every canoe except one’s own. 

That is why Christ’s suffering for us is not a mere theological dodge but the supreme case of the law that governs the whole world; and when they mocked him by saying, ‘He saved others, himself he connot save,’ [Matthew 27:42; Mark 15:31] they were really uttering, little as they knew it, the ultimate law of the spiritual world.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II
Compiled in Yours, Jack

Thankful Hearts and Continual Feasting

What does feasting and thankfulness have in common? They're inescapably connected, according to God. 

All the days of the desponding and afflicted are made evil [by anxious thoughts and forebodings], but he who has a glad heart has a continual feast [regardless of circumstances].”

Proverbs 15:15

Regardless of circumstances, life can be a feast! 

Lord, uphold me according to your Word and really let me experience the joy of feasting with you by having a thankful heart. 

God's Desire For Us

Who is a God like You, Who forgives iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retains not His anger forever, because He delights in mercy and loving-kindness.

Micah 7:18

God chooses to pass over our sins. It's a part of his character, as well as His heritage. 

His delight in mercy and loving kindness is greater than any desire he has to punish. 

That's a good God.