Another few verses from Proverbs that I keyed in on today:

First off, Proverbs 20:22, “Do not say, “I will repay evil”; wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.”

This is so good, and it is so hard to remember in the heat of the moment - that we aren’t to avenge ourselves.  When we’re hurt, we aren’t to lash out, to get even.  We aren’t to just cut people off from us and hope that they feel some pain from that loss...we are to let God do that work.  I have to say, just being transparent, that the divorce I experienced years ago really helped me to learn this lesson.  There wasn’t anything I could do after my ex-wife had made her decision...I was helpless at that point.  This has nothing to do with taking responsibility for the relationship beforehand or any of that, I am talking about that moment when we hit the ‘do not pass go’ moment and this was happening; it would have been so easy to try to begin avenging myself, to lashing out daily, to carry that forward to now...people go through divorces and are taking things out on their spouses years later.  The reality is, that isn’t my responsibility.  It is so hard to accept that, but a silver lining to a season of life like that is that you can use that season to really come to grips with this reality.  Now, it is much easier for me to let things go, to take steps to distance myself and protect myself from certain people or certain situations, but to do so without that sense of needing to get them back or to get even.  What most people miss about this though is that this advice ISN’T for the other person’s sake...it is for OUR sake.  I can’t move on if I am trying to get even with you for something.  Therefore, I can’t have peace and I be healthy.  Often times, that other person has already moved on, and to steal a quote from someone, we are just drinking poison and hoping it hurts someone else...it is just a fools errand.  Great wisdom in this simple verse.

And then, a pair of verses that sit next to each other that I think are just so good, Proverbs 20:28-29, “Steadfast love and faithfulness preserve the king, and by steadfast love his throne is upheld.  The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.”

And these are fabulous.  LOVE and FAITHFULNESS preserve the king...not power, not even wisdom, but LOVE and FAITHFULNESS.  A loving king is a wise king, by extension...love is the key characteristic of a king, of a leader.  And then a real memory verse, verse 29...that the glory of young men is their strength and the splendor of old is their gray hair.  I mean, that doesn’t need explanation...it is brilliant.  And it begs the question, as a young man, why would you not surround yourself with people of wisdom intentionally in your life?  Which begs another question, isn’t it true that you are almost always younger than some other people, and thus, aren’t you always a ‘young man’ in some way or another?  Translation...we should ALL surround ourselves with wise people whom we can learn from and be challenged by, on a personal level.

Great stuff this morning!