The Proverbs 31 Project: Commenting May 2nd on Proverbs 2:7,8

"Thirty days hath September, 

April, June and November

All the rest have 31

Except February which has 28

Except during leap year when it has 29"

NO I DID NOT WRITE THIS "POEM"!  (Talk about free verse!)

Why didn't somebody just point out that the four months that do NOT have 31 days (except February, and everyone knows all about February The Exceptional) come every other month except that there is no 30 day month between July and August?  The silly poem mixes up the order just to hide the fact that the real 30 day months come in two orderly pairs: April/June and September/November.  Can somebody please write a non-silly poem for us that will make this clear, and stick in our minds, but without gooping them up with exceptions (and please just leave February out of it!)?

And to make matters (far) worse, MILLERWRITES has decided to make a Proverbs Pull-A-Part Plan that decimates that fine collection of wisdom in the book of Proverbs, by spreading commentary on each chapter out over 7 months (the good 31 day months)!  Oh don't ask me to explain my system.  You can try to decipher what I said about it at the top of any P31P posts from January or March if you like, or just follow along this month and figure it out.  All Bible passages are from the NIV, and are copied here from Biblegateway.com

So today I will offer my amateur comments on verses 7-8.  Today's inspired verses are in red, and my comments....are not (either red, or inspired).




REMEMBER: My comments may be oh so mesmerizing, but you will get more benefit today just from reading the chapter itself!

PROVERBS 2

Moral Benefits of Wisdom

1 My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding —
3 indeed, if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He holds success in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, 

7) Can uprightness and blamelessness be discerned through the witness of success or failure?  This verse would suggest as much.  But then it says that "He holds success...", which may imply that the true success of a person's life may come after a time.  In fact, it may only appear in a certain indiscernible, or even invisible form that only an all knowing God (and the smiling soul deep inside a person) can recognize.  Anyway, choosing to be anything but upright and blameless is an obvious mistake.  We must follow God's ways, or hurt.

8 for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.

8) More wonderful promises along the same lines for the upright among us.
Phrases like "Guarding the course", and "protecting the way" sure make it sound like we have an active, personal, and involved God.  What a comfort!

I might be quick to add that his guarding and protecting doesn't necessarily result in an absolutely care free life!  (I always have had a firm grasp of the obvious!)  But God does make sure that we are given a way out of temptation, for example, and that we are never tried beyond what we can bear, while His spirit is given free reign within.

9 Then you will understand what is right and just
and fair—every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
11 Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you.


12 Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,
from men whose words are perverse,
13 who have left the straight paths
to walk in dark ways,
14 who delight in doing wrong
and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,
15 whose paths are crooked
and who are devious in their ways.


16 Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman,
from the wayward woman with her seductive words,
17 who has left the partner of her youth
and ignored the covenant she made before God.
18 Surely her house leads down to death
and her paths to the spirits of the dead.
19 None who go to her return
or attain the paths of life.


20 Thus you will walk in the ways of the good
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright will live in the land,
and the blameless will remain in it;
22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the unfaithful will be torn from it.




By the way...MILLERWRITES copy is COPYRIGHTED. Why cut and paste when you can simply copy the link?

The Ladders of SUCCESS!

[LADDERS OF SUCCESS post starts HERE]  I heard that somebody was having trouble getting a picture onto their Blogspot site, so I thought I should see if my advice was any good.  Then it turned into a collection of pictures chosen by their connection to ladders (for no good reason), and now this experiment has transformed  into a successful (if I have to say so myself) essay relating to the GBE 2 theme of the week:  SUCCESS!

Each picture relates to a job I completed in recent months that required a ladder.  CLIMBING THE LADDER OF SUCCESS (NOW do you get it?) has long been the challenge for people everywhere.
What they generally forget to mention is that ladders sometimes slip out at the bottom, or slide off to the side, or just plain crumble and drop you like a tool belt laden rock!  See those two suckers, I mean guys, up on the roof in the snow?  Once in a while, the successful  guy (read: smart guy) is the one on the ground taking the picture (me).








This is the starter ladder for toddlers and preschoolers who just can't wait to step up to that first rung!  Like the in-vitro babies listening to Shakespeare through abdominal walls, these kids have ambition!  My partner and I put this swing set together and two kids were climbing on it and banging their noggins at the top of the ladder (should not that be a warning in itself, to all wannabe executives?) before we could even pack our tools away.  Their Mother, to her great credit, said "shake it off" and the little guy did just that; he shook his head a couple times and went on to tackle the slide.  Endurance required, for success.

Here we have ladders in the sand. The bad news is that the ladder's feet can slide away from the wall if it's not steep enough.  The good news is that you can easily use your hammer claw to dig nice big pockets for the ladder's feet to snuggle into.  Once you get the two feet dug in evenly you're good to go, as high as you want to.  To ensure success, build your house on a solid rock, someone better than I has said.







This is another view of the giant picture at the top of this post.  I had to enlarge that one a million times so you could tell that this picture was not taken at the flea circus.
That's me up there remembering the time a mere 8 foot ladder I was standing atop of, slid off the roof.  The good news was that after I landed flat on the sidewalk below, the ladder landed next to me instead of on top of me!  Success sometimes benefits from a bit of luck.

My favorite ladder picture is below.  And the really amazing thing is that I have a favorite ladder picture!  I mean, who prioritizes their ladder pictures?  Is your file of ladder pictures ordered according to aesthetic appeal?  Didn't think so.  Anyway.  You've heard of Goldilocks and her quest for the 'just right' bed?  Well after trying the red and the blue, Graylocks here finally settled on the yellow one!  Actually, any indoor finish work ladder, no matter what the color, is THE ladder of success!