Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 3:21-26

My son, let them not depart from your eyes—
Keep sound wisdom and discretion;
So they will be life to your soul
And grace to your neck.
Then you will walk safely in your way,
And your foot will not stumble.
When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.
Do not be afraid of sudden terror,
Nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes;
For the Lord will be your confidence,
And will keep your foot from being caught.

Proverbs 3:21-26 (NKJV).

Wisdom is not an answer, wisdom is the process to determine what the optimal answer really is. This idea is captured in the old idiom about "teaching a man to fish" contrasted twith "giving a man a fish".

Yes, a man who knows how to fish will have fish, but they won't need to rely on you in order to get it. Creating a relationship of dependency does solve the immediate need, but leaves them reliant on you the next time the problem comes up.

Ideally, when giving advice, we are not just giving answers, but trying to teach the method by which an answer could be found, so that we are not looked to indefinitely. While it may be ego-boosting for a while to be held in such high esteem by someone else, for them to trust that what you give them is good, but you will eventually run out of answers, and you will grow to resent the dependency as the other person's appearance grows to look more like that of a freeloader than anything else.

Humans are finite, and our ability to provide for others is in turn also limited, but it pains our ego to admit this when being the material savior for someone else feels so good. We enjoy being able to give answers, to be looked upon with such favor by others, but we are not wired to handle that kind of attention, to bear that kind of responsibility, for anyone else for a very long time.

Sure, parents do this for children, while the child is maturing and growing in even the capacity to understand process. You will have to "give your child a fish" for many years before you can "teach them to fish", but at some point your child will mature into an adult and will be expected to take care of themselves.

In our culture right now, people demonize "childish" things as a means of trying to stigmatize certain activities as not being appropriate for an "adult", but this misunderstands the nature of what a child is. A child does not make their own decisions, earn their own money, provision for a family, leave the responsibility of their parents. That there are activities a child does does not necessarily make them a child, it's the context of whether that's all they can do because they cannot be expected to do anything else.

For example, "adult coloring books" have regularly been maligned, yet as a way to spend time, how is that any worse than tending to a garden? Both are activities that work within existing constraints and yet allow the choices you make within those constraints to be an expression of the individual. Is anyone else going to hang up the finished product in a museum? No, but that's not the point of art in the first place. It's about expression of the self, not an attempt to garner praise from others.

We thus can't get caught up denigrating what we think is "childish" and not turn around to provide wisdom to make better choices, and then leave people alone to make their own choices. That's adulthood, not a particular set of activities, but the ownership of choosing them and dealing with the consequences.

Generally children sleep well at night, but when they can't it's often because there is something which has scared them and they fear what will happen to them if they went to sleep. Sleeping is a time of great vulnerability, so the "monster under the bed" waiting till the child has fallen asleep to come out and eat them will prompt a child to consider never sleeping again. Their only choice is to avoid circumstances that might get them eaten because they don't know how to actually deal with the "monster under the bed" at all. They can only react to the problem, avoid it, but they can never solve it.

As children mature though, and begin to bear more weight on their shoulders, their thoughts are filled with more things to fear, and things which are even more real as well. Finances, relationships, politics, religion, so many other arenas to fight in and there's just not enough hours in the day to "get everything done". The teenager stays up late, not necessarily out of irresponsibility, but from the efforts to cope with something that has stirred their mind and it just won't settle.

You don't become an adult just because you spend time on certain activities, but because you face problems of every type and deal with them as best you can instead of avoiding them or leaving them for someone else to solve on your behalf. Wisdom and discretion are key to a "good night's rest" not because they give answers, but because they set you on a path towards finding the optimal solution to the problems you have, and in a lifetime of successive wise choices, your fear of both the known and unknown naturally subsides.

This is not because you have no concern for the possibility of negative circumstances, but because you have the tools necessary to deal with whatever problems you will face. When you have wisdom and discretion, when you have obedience to God, even in times of great trouble you can have peace in knowing that you are making the best choices you can with the resources and circumstances you are facing.

There's no need to be afraid, because with the Lord as your teacher, you are not powerless, you are not vulnerable and tossed about by life, but you are sure and steady in how you walk and can deal with whatever comes your way. You are given strength by God through your constraints and your weaknesses to survive and glorify God in both the midst of, and after passing through, difficulties in your life.