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Proverbs 18 (part 2)
Housekeeping announcement - I love reading this stuff, but we have been in Proverbs for a month (or longer?) and we are finishing up chapter 18 of 31. What I am going to do is to start a different study tomorrow, not sure what yet, but I will start with pre-reading on that tomorrow and we’ll use Proverbs as our break from that if need it, and we’ll return to Proverbs and keep working our way through to the finish. Just want to keep things fresh as it goes to my reading.
For today, I loved this verse - it really jumped out at me:
14 “A man’s spirit will endure sickness,
but a crushed spirit who can bear?”
I am being drawn to these self-reflective questions a lot, and perhaps it is the fruit of this 10 minutes of sitting with myself, reflecting on the state of my heart and my soul each morning...not sure, but this verse fits right into that theme.
Look, life is hard and we are all going to endure sickness, our spirit will be challenged, and the author is up-front about that in this verse. But I love the second part, the question, “But who can bear a crushed spirit?”...great question. What do you do when you are crushed in your spirit? Well, it is typically destruction mode. In this context, I believe what the author is communicating by the term ‘crushed spirit’ is a spirit without hope. Now, you have to be pretty down to get to that level, but that’s the point I think...since we know that wisdom is a path down which we travel, as is hopelessness, we must look at ourselves, examine ourselves, and we must make sure we notice when we are moving in that direction long before we ever actually get to that place of hopelessness. It is one thing to feel the struggle, to lose some of our hope, but it is another thing entirely to be hope-less.
It is so important that we learn to guard our heart. It is so important that we surround ourselves with people who can both encourage us and challenge us. This verse is just another great reminder of those truths, and of how important it is to stave off hopelessness a long way before we get there, because as the author simply states, who can really bear the weight of that crushed spirit?; no one.
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By Steve AndersonHousekeeping announcement - I love reading this stuff, but we have been in Proverbs for a month (or longer?) and we are finishing up chapter 18 of 31. What I am going to do is to start a different study tomorrow, not sure what yet, but I will start with pre-reading on that tomorrow and we’ll use Proverbs as our break from that if need it, and we’ll return to Proverbs and keep working our way through to the finish. Just want to keep things fresh as it goes to my reading.
For today, I loved this verse - it really jumped out at me:
14 “A man’s spirit will endure sickness,
but a crushed spirit who can bear?”
I am being drawn to these self-reflective questions a lot, and perhaps it is the fruit of this 10 minutes of sitting with myself, reflecting on the state of my heart and my soul each morning...not sure, but this verse fits right into that theme.
Look, life is hard and we are all going to endure sickness, our spirit will be challenged, and the author is up-front about that in this verse. But I love the second part, the question, “But who can bear a crushed spirit?”...great question. What do you do when you are crushed in your spirit? Well, it is typically destruction mode. In this context, I believe what the author is communicating by the term ‘crushed spirit’ is a spirit without hope. Now, you have to be pretty down to get to that level, but that’s the point I think...since we know that wisdom is a path down which we travel, as is hopelessness, we must look at ourselves, examine ourselves, and we must make sure we notice when we are moving in that direction long before we ever actually get to that place of hopelessness. It is one thing to feel the struggle, to lose some of our hope, but it is another thing entirely to be hope-less.
It is so important that we learn to guard our heart. It is so important that we surround ourselves with people who can both encourage us and challenge us. This verse is just another great reminder of those truths, and of how important it is to stave off hopelessness a long way before we get there, because as the author simply states, who can really bear the weight of that crushed spirit?; no one.