Road rules

In today’s passage, wisdom (personified) cries out in the noisy streets and reminds all who will listen that she is willing and ready to pour out her spirit to all who will listen and respond to her correction. But to those who reject her, terror will strike them “like a storm” and calamity will sweep over them “like a whirlwind” (Proverbs 1:27).

So, for all those who “know it all,” there is still a lot of learning to do. When you desire obedience, you will love attaining knowledge even when the truth hurts and demands a change in your life. 

A “man of wrath” is controlled by anger. You know the type. They are constantly railing about something. The government. The educational system. Their business partners. The neighbors. How someone treated them at a particular restaurant.

I do not and cannot live in a bubble. This is the real world. Things will occur that make me angry. But here is the question: Will I control my anger, or will my anger control me?

Scripture is profound. It describes the eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God who sent his Son as a substitutionary atonement for our sin, imputes our sin on him, and imputes his righteousness on us. And Scripture is profoundly practical. When you see a hot-tempered person, for goodness sakes, keep your distance from them whatever you do.

Anger produces strife, but it doesn’t have to. Instead of pressing anger, surrender it to God. Place your emotions under the control of the Holy Spirit that lives within every believer. He is more than capable of turning your swirling emotions into Spirit-controlled peace.

So, when you feel it coming on…when the anger starts working in your mind, causing your blood pressure to rise and making you want to do something or say something, you will most certainly regret…pray for God to take control of your heart. It takes a person of discipline and the power of God to control the temper.

But when our strong confidence is in God, our children also see that and trust in him. God will be a spiritual shelter and protection for them, just as he has been for us. 

Here’s the point of today’s proverb: Don’t be jealous; be zealous! Why envy the person who finds ultimate enjoyment in temporal stuff? Why envy the person whose eternal future will be “cut off”?