Tiny Devotional for Tuesday, 08-08-2023

A great good morning to all my friends and neighbors in Internet Land! And to family members who have dropped by, BOTH dogs like pinto beans.

Counsel is mine and sound wisdom;
I am understanding, power is mine.
Proverbs 8:14, NASB

Wisdom, I was rocking right along with you as long as you were talking about counsel, wisdom, and understanding; but POWER?

The skinny little kid who is smart in the classroom gets beat up on the playground by the big dumb bully, right? I recall a number of those experiences; what I DON’T recall was any sense in which I could say ‘power is mine.’ When I was upside down in the trash can, power and I were not even remotely related.
How do we reconcile the incongruity?
Well, there isn’t one. Any confusion in trying to apply the ancient wisdom to the modern experience comes from failure to discriminate between wisdom and knowledge.

Yes, I was a smart, skinny kid; I was not a WISE skinny kid. Even a small amount of wisdom would have informed me that making fun of a big kid was going to have a bad outcome, JUST LIKE ALWAYS!  I had no wisdom, I had no understanding; so, I kept doing the same things, expecting different outcomes. 
Understanding would have made it relatively easy to make friends, instead of enemies. Instead of mocking their weakness, I could have provided support. 

This verse speaks to us of counsel; wisdom; understanding; power:

  • The counsel (command, actually) Jesus gave us was to love our enemies. 
  • Wisdom is found in obeying Him. 
  • Understanding our enemies is the inevitable product of loving them. 
  • Power to turn enemies into friends is greater than the power to capture a city.

We can DO this!

Peace be on your household.

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