Lessons Learned: Wisdom Is Everything

Proverbs is a great book for introspection. As I read Proverbs, I started to think of how these nuggets of wisdom applied to my own life. Am I the fool or the wise man in Solomon's examples. As much as the truth hurts, sometimes I'm the fool, but with the wisdom given, I can work to improve myself and so can you!

Introduction

Proverbs is one of those books I never sat down and read from beginning to end. Generally, I thought of Proverbs as a bunch of disjoint sayings. Now that I've reread it, I rather like reading it as a whole. There are so many gems that even a person like me who isn't generally in to quotes can appreciate the book. I have a desire to make art containing the quotes to hang everywhere in my house. There's so much wisdom in the passages here, it'll never get old. We often forget even the simplest things.
Top

Improving Myself

As a woman, Proverbs 31 probably sticks in my head the most. However, I think reading Proverbs really made me reevaluate how I view myself. There is always something we can improve upon and I found several qualities in my on life I need to revisit. For one, most of the movies and TV shows I enjoy are riddled with violence; Solomon warns us about taking delight in such things and as I thought about it, it makes sense that God would not want us indulging in such things. Another question I had my for myself was how well do I take criticism? It's easy to criticize, but many times we don't want to hear other's criticisms of ourselves. Going forth, I plan to make an effort to be more aware and pray over criticisms before accepting or rejecting them. While I think I give thought to the poor, I spent much of the past few years feeling as though I was one of the poor. In that state I didn't do much to help those who actually are poor. As an American who grew up in the middle class, it's easy to allow your perception distorted. Even though I didn't have as much money as I needed to live the way I was used to living, I was still fairing much better than others. It is important not only to remember the plight of those less fortunate than ourselves, but to do all that we can for those suffering. This is something I plan to work on as well.

Future Reading

The next time I read through Proverbs I plan to keep a journal comparing the behaviors talked about to my own. I think that by using the wisdom here as a mirror to our own lives we can really improve ourselves and strength our walk with Christ.

References