Apr 17 - Today from Proverbs 17 we look at verse 14
"Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out."
Our church has embraced a philosophy that I believe is fundamentally critical to living a peaceable life. It is composed of three simple sentences that, when combined, reveal a profound attitude. It goes like this:
In essentials, unity.
In non-essentials, liberty.
In all things, love.
There are actually few things in this life that are really worth quarreling over. Most of the stuff we quarrel about is non-essential, but our pride refuses to admit it. I guess it comes down to values. Some people value being right over being kind. First Corinthians 13:4 says "love is kind". Some people value their own way over all other ways. First Corinthians 13:5 says that love "does not insist on its own way" (RSV). As you can see, love readjusts values in a person's life. Love is the key to the little philosophy shared above. Without love in the composition, it is difficult to determine what the non-essentials are.
Our proverb for today is basically telling us to choose our battles carefully - there is a cost to war. Even 'minor quarrels' exact a cost. And as the proverb indicates, it often ends up to be far more costly than anticipated. When a dam is breached, it starts as a mere trickle that appears to be quite easily controlled. But, behind that trickle is a force that is almost impossible to control. Once that little stream is allowed to start, the force behind it quickly breaks down the restraining force of the dam. That's the picture the proverb conveys. Behind the seemingly small disagreement over a non-essential issue is a force called pride. It is a force that is almost impossible to control, and when breached, it quickly breaks down the restraints that kept it in check. The greatest restraint is love. If we can stay focused on love, and allow it to dominate our values, we will have little damage control to deal with in our lives.
This is not to say that we are to avoid quarrels all together. We still have the issue of essentials. There are in our values system things that are not to be compromised. Some things need to be stood for. When the other is not in agreement, and insists on challenging an essential value, it is a place to take a stand. In such cases it is good to practice yesterday's lesson from Proverbs 16:21, "Pleasant words promote instruction."
Since Nov 08
About Me
- Ken
- While mentor-ing a couple of young men late in the year 2001 , I told them that if they agreed to read a chapter of Proverbs each week-day as a part of their devotions, I would choose one verse from the chapter and share a meditation by email. They agreed. I continued to write the meditations at my desk in my home for the next two and a half years. They began to forward them to their friends and I received requests from those friends to be placed on the email list. My personal email bundle was to about eighty people. Many of those people forwarded them to friends all over the country – and some over the world. Only the Lord knows how extensive the writings traveled. I am not a professional writer, and each meditation was spun off in a relatively short period of time during my own personal devotions in the morning. In April of 2004 I assembled 366 of the meditations into a calendar year. As I now bring up the Proverb of the Day to send on to my friends, I am surprised at how fresh each of them is to my own heart – and often how they speak to me in a completely different way than when I first wrote them. . . . . Ken Sweers
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