Have you ever taken
one of those biological age tests that are all the rage on the internet? (Warning: most are designed to pitch you
something at the end.)
There is probably some marginal utility to such things. Obviously you have an actual age, and that age
cannot change; the year you were born is the year you were born. But the
medical reality at the root of these tests is that the number and intensity of
stressors in your daily life tend to shorten it, while the absence of such
stressors will, at very least, not make things any worse. Thus your “biological age”, as these folks define it, is something akin to your own personal doomsday clock.
Do you smoke? Lose five years. More than two drinks a day? Ooh, you’re in trouble. Hate your job
or sleep too little? Another strike or two. Depending on your situation and
habits, you may start to wonder why you haven’t keeled over already.
Stressors and Proverbial Remedies
Not every stressor has a Bible proverb that directly addresses it, but many have more than one. Even
modern habits like smoking may too, if only by application. So when Solomon tells his son, “Let your heart keep my commandments, for
length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you,”
he’s not saying anything that medical science wouldn’t at
least grudgingly nod along with. All else being equal, a life lived in accordance
with the wisdom of Proverbs will be longer than one that isn’t.
Solomon and medical science: the two bodies of advice for living overlap significantly, but the difference between them is
this: Solomon attributes his wisdom to God. That’s a pretty significant area of departure. He says God “stores up sound wisdom for the upright.” Whatever Solomon is about to say that may lengthen the
life of his audience, he heard it first from Heaven, either directly or at one
or two removes.
Thus it’s about time for Solomon to introduce the Author of Wisdom and give him his due credit.
3. The Author of Wisdom (Proverbs 3:1-12)
Jehovah in Proverbs
God has, of course, been name-checked more than once in the first two chapters of Proverbs. In the first chapter we are told, “The fear of
the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” In chapter 2, we learn that if you prize
wisdom and search for it, “you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” Solomon then declares that all wisdom originates with God, and
follows that by speaking of the forbidden woman who “forgets the covenant of her God”.
What follows will therefore not surprise the attentive reader. In addition to obedience to his commandments, Solomon recommends
steadfast love and faithfulness, but the ultimate purpose of these is “so you
will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.” Naturally, God comes first. It is not a matter of success by worldly
standards or success by the measurer’s own metrics, but rather success by the
standard of God’s own righteous judgment. To hear the commendation “Well done, good and
faithful servant” should be the aspiration of every believer. To be approved by
man is simply a relatively insignificant bonus to the big prize.
Five Critical God-Related Instructions
Solomon follows this with five critical
God-related instructions, obedience to which demonstrates we are on the right
road: trust, acknowledge, fear, honor and submit.
1. Trust. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” If you are drowning and I say to you, “Stop
thrashing and let me support you,” you may either trust your own estimation of
the situation (and of my capability to save you), or you may trust mine. If you
trust your own, you will keep kicking and flailing uselessly, and probably drag
us both down. If you trust mine, you will do what is completely counterintuitive
to you in your panicked state, stop flapping around and let your weight fall on
me, whereupon there is a chance we may both make it to shore. In a lake, this
sort of thing is rarely an intellectual decision. In life, we generally have a
few moments to consider our choices. But the bottom line is always a matter of
the heart. You either trust or you do not, and life’s choices prove which it is.
2. Acknowledge. “In all your ways acknowledge him, and
he will make straight your paths.” The teenager playing football is sometimes reluctant to be seen
acknowledging his mother sitting in the bleachers. His teammates might call him
a “mommy’s boy” or worse. What the teen needs to remember is that his mother was
there for him from the moment he was born, and will be there for him when every
one of his teammate’s names are long forgotten. Some relationships are more important
than others. You prioritize the ones that last longest and mean the most. To
forget that is a failure of loyalty and a significant miscalculation of value.
The same applies when we walk into a new work environment and the thought of
running up the colors of our faith in a roomful of blue-haired Progressives
seems like an iffy idea. It’s not. It never is. Everything that follows depends
on it.
3. Fear. “Be not wise in your own
eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.” Eve messed up on this one, as did Korah, Saul
and many others who had a “better” plan in mind than the one God had previously
and clearly spelled out. But the Hebrew yare' does not always mean nothing more daunting than a mere genuflecting religiosity. A dose of something
stronger than reverence was in order in each of these historical cases; some
genuine awe, astonishment, dread or paranoia about what it really means to defy
the God of heaven would have been immensely useful to those who later crossed
the line and paid the price for it. The end product of fear, after
all, is healing and refreshment, not misery and cowering.
4. Honor. “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce.” It’s amazing how many years it took me to get
this one straight, but there is no other path for the believer. God gets his
first. That’s the bottom line. All blessing flows from that.
5. Submit. “My son, do
not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof.” Submission is a New Testament concept Christians tend to associate mostly with the roles of women, children
and slaves, but in fact all of us need to adopt the same attitude toward God at
all times, as we ought to many of our other earthly relationships. The word “submit”
is not specifically used here, but the concept is clearly relevant. One who
truly takes the place in which he belongs does not question the sort of
discipline required to bring him into the correct state of being, nor does he
cry out for it to cease when it becomes the slightest bit hard to endure. At
his core, he knows it is all for his own good. Love and delight are
behind it.
The Source of All Wisdom
Wisdom did not evolve with mankind. It is not a product of hundreds of thousands of years of humankind’s corporate experience
somehow encoded into our genes. It is a gift from heaven, its author is God,
and its basis is not lore or book-knowledge but an ongoing relationship.
Not the worst advice to give your kid, especially if one day he may be king.
And even if he won’t.
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