Proverbs 24

I am posting late again! Sorry. A couple of different places spoke to me today.

verses 3-4 say "Through wisdom a house is built and by understanding it is established. By knowledge, the rooms are filled with precious and pleasant riches." I just spent a few weeks studying 1 & 2 Peter, and he talks so much about "how you build" ie...how you build your life, your family, your marriage, your children, your ministry, etc. One of the things he talks about is the chief cornerstone. It is like our homes..they all have a foundation, but what if the cornerstones were off? What if stones were missing from our foundation? What if our foundations weren't aligned with the corners? Our homes would be a big mess...probably unlivable with crooked walls, tilting floors, and holes in some odd places. Same thing with our life. Jesus is the chief cornerstone, and we are to align ourselves with Him and His will. If we don't put ourselves into right relationship and alignment with that chief cornerstone in our own life, our foundation is faulty, and our "house" gets built crooked with missing parts and all that. This proverb says "through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established." It just reminds me of the importance to align ourselves with Him completely and totally as we built our life, so what we're building will last, so that we are building our families, marriages, children, emotions, etc on the Word, lined up with HIm, on a solid foundation of faith, so when things come at us in life, we won't just "stand", but we will flourish. In second Peter it also talks about building...about having a solid foundation of faith, then adding to faith virtue (cultivating a right heart response to God in our life), then adding to virtue knowledge (the Word applied to our life), then to knowledge self control (being able to say "no" to ourselves and live a disciplined lifestyle), then to self-control perseverance (well, we'll never be able to persevere through difficult times without those last few qualities, but perseverance is patience and stability in our life, emotions, etc), then to perseverance godliness (godliness is a sanctified, holy lifestyle), then to godliness brotherly kindness (true compassion and concern for others...living our life literally for other people and not ourselves) and to brotherly kindness love. (love is selflessness). These proverbs remind me of this whole thing that has been stirring in my heart these past few weeks. If we don't have the love, brotherly kindness, perseverance parts right, then we need to go back to the foundation b/c all these things add to each other. We don't just love first.....that is faulty, First we have faith, then virtue, then self control...etc. They all add one upon the other and we can't miss any. I have been challenged by lacking some important "precious riches" in "building" the house of my own life and need to go back and take a look at some of those. the Bible talks so much about buildings and foundations....really interesting, but so full of personal revelation and rhemas for us all in how we build our lives. This was just a nugget of what God has been speaking to me in that area.

The other ones that spoke to me are at the end "I went to the field of a lazy man......and there it was all overgrown with thorns. It's surface was covered with nettles; it's stone wall was broken down.When I saw it I considered it well; I looked on it and received instruction." This in particular spoke to me. In my life I have watched many people and learned. I have learned from watching other people do it welll, and I have learned by watching other people not do life well and have taken note that I won't do it that way! But, either way, we can be thankful when the Lord teaches us lessons, especially through learning the "how we won't do things" sometimes. For example, I didn't get raised by a perfect family. My parents are great parents, but they are divorced. Kind of like the messy field in that area. But, instead of letting it get the best of me, I can learn from it and be thankful for what God has shown me through it and apply something different to my life. This is so many areas of our lives, but good proverb...just to watch and learn from good or bad stuff, and that sometimes the best way to learn is to be like "I won't do that!"