Insightful Musings on the Scripturesby
Ray Sparre, NU class of '67
Ray has a wealth of experience as a Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, and student of the Word. He believes and practices his faith where the rubber meets the road. You'll find his writings to be practical, insightful, and grounded in a truly Christ-centered world view.
Below are links to a printable daily Bible reading guide which Ray has followed, and an archive of all his daily devotional writings for 2010 and 2011.
| Sparre Home Page | Daily Reading Guide | 2011 Devotion Archives | 2010 Devotion Archives |
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19 Dec 11
Good morning, dear ones.
A guy is coming at 9am with a load of alder logs to be sawn up…so I better get on with preparations.
Have a blessed day.
Love, Dad/Ray.
19 December 2011
Proverbs 19
Focus: “A man’s own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the LORD.” Proverbs 19:3.
Did you hear about the woman who bought a scalding hot cup of coffee at McDonalds without a lid? She carried on driving her car and promptly spilled it in her lap, giving her some serious burns and messing up her car upholstery. Rather than face the fact that she made a stupid irresponsible mistake, her heart raged against McDonalds and attacked them with a lawsuit.
The BLAME GAME started a long time ago—like in the Garden of Eden. Adam didn’t like one bit the bad consequences of his stupid disobedience. Rather than accept responsibility for his actions, he goes to blaming. It gets complicated—he blames the woman for giving him the forbidden fruit, then blames God for giving him the woman who gave him the forbidden fruit. I assume he blamed the serpent (Satan) for tricking his woman. He may also have blamed the lousy tree for being there and blamed the deceitful fruit for looking and tasting so good.
The thought occurs to me that a parallel pronouncement of God’s curse could be, “In the day that ye make the stupid choice to eat thereof, ye shall surely become stupid.” You need to know that they didn’t live happily ever after. Not much has changed from then till now. Stupid is still very popular. I see it as a synonym for “folly.” And we are wise recognize that we all have inherited a good deal of it. It’s embedded in our human DNA.
This could be a good time and place to review an important principle of life that we can draw from the agricultural law of SOWING AND REAPING. It can apply to just about every problem we face—dividing it into two parts—root problems (causes, where seeds are sown and grow down) and surface problems (effects, where seeds grow up and visibly produce fruit, where reaping takes place). Using the model of the FOCUS VERSE, a ruined life is the resulting surface problem, and folly is the root problem. And it is the prevailing presence of folly that prompts one to blame God—to rage against the LORD. This is both simple and profound in helping us to sort out and troubleshoot the problems we face.
May I repeat Proverbs 4:23? “Above all, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” The main idea is also born out by Jesus when He says, “Make a tree (root, core, heart, quality, orientation) good and its fruit (practical real-life results) will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit” (Matthew 12:33-34).
“He that sows thistles shall reap prickles.”