April 4

Apr 4 - Today from Proverbs 4 we look at verses 10-12
"Listen my son, accept what I say, and the years of your life will be many. I guide you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hampered; when you run, you will not stumble."

If we read the Bible strictly as literary works of men, we could view our reading of this chapter as a peek at an intimate plea from a father's heart to his adolescent son as the son prepares to venture into a vast world system full of varying views and ideas and fraught with deceitful pitfalls. Having had the experience of raising two sons, I know exactly what this father's hearts is experiencing.
But the Bible is more. It is fully inspired of the Holy Spirit. It transcends cultures and time and is a personal communication from the heavenly Father to each of His children. When I read this chapter, I hear the Father's heart making a plea to me. I am the spiritually adolescent child. I am the one who can be easily distracted in the vast public pool of ideas and be led down a path where pitfalls and dangers abound. Father does not give me instruction because He wants to control my life. He gives me instruction and says, "Learn self-control." Part of that self-control is to accept what He says as the right and true way. Part of that self-control is to let His Word guide me through life here in this world. If I know Him, I will accept it, because I know that He is the Creator, and His way is the way life was meant to be. All other ways are paths of deceit, and only lead to darkness.
Many years after Father gave this instruction by the hand of Solomon, He speaks again by the hand of the prophet Isaiah when He says to me, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run, and not be weary, they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40: 31) It echoes Proverbs 4:10-12. When we can see the picture that the original Hebrew language paints here, the heart of Father becomes very clear. The word 'wait' does not just mean to remain in expectation, ready for use. In the Hebrew it means 'to bind together by twisting'. It puts one in mind of the strands of a rope. It is an incredibly intimate picture that the Father gives of His desire for relationship. In Ecclesiastes 4:12 Father speaks of the strength of relationships when He says, "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." When I am bound to the Father in an intimate relationship, listening to Him and accepting what He says as truth -- above all other things that I sense or hear -- then I am in a position not to be broken. It is His strength that will hold, long after I have passed my breaking point.
Wisdom listens to the Father and accepts what he says as truth. If it is accepted, it is acted upon, we needn't worry about stumbling.