Can you hear HER?
Wisdom is like a woman shouting in the street; she raises her voice in the city squares. She cries out in the noisy street and shouts at the city gates: "You fools, how long will you be foolish? How long will you make fun of wisdom and hate knowledge? If only you had listened when I corrected you, I would have told you what's in my heart; I would have told you what I am thinking. Proverbs 1:20-23.
How do you handle correction? Do you have a set of criteria (often hidden/unknown) that one must know IF they are to be able to correctly approach you and bring discipline or reproof? Do you have a shortlist of those that, upon meeting your criteria, can carefully and graciously bring observations … suggestions … concerns?
And, even when it's the right person and right time do you, still, immediately become defensive and shut down your ability to hear by beginning to formulate your answer(s)? Have people stopped trying to approach you because of how you've reacted in previous encounters? This isn't good…
Correction… it's not easy… and rarely fun. but, it's truth - and you need it - me too!!
"Truth demands confrontation; loving
confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless."
Francis Schaeffer
Read the verses at the top again… fool. that's is THE "f-word" to me. the Word of God tells us that the person who refuses TRUTH (wisdom and knowledge) is foolish - yes, a fool. In today's passage we are told that we could've known what God was thinking and what was on His heart IF we had only embraced correction… gulp. we're cheating ourselves!
maybe we should make it easier for others to approach us. maybe we should ask before we have to be approached. if we can't take it from others, chances are we won't hear it from God either…
choice: to be a fool to God or to be cool with God. is there really a choice?
getting, painfully, wiser… chilly
a few final questions to consider:
* is it hard for people to confront you?
* are you Christ-like when confronting others?
* have you been a 'fool' (according to the text)?
* do you need to apologize for defensiveness?
