Wisdom has built her house,
She has hewn out her seven pillars;
She has slaughtered her meat,
She has mixed her wine,
She has also furnished her table.
She has sent out her maidens,
She cries out from the highest places of the city,
“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!”
As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him,
“Come, eat of my bread
And drink of the wine I have mixed.
Forsake foolishness and live,
And go in the way of understanding.
Proverbs 9:1-6 (NKJV).
One of the more sad realities of those that reject wisdom is that all they desire to achieve, to obtain for themselves, or to experience, is available through wisdom as well. There aren't two different "destinations", but the same destination of "understanding", and two paths to get there.
Wisdom is described as offering nourishment and entertainment in a similar fashion to the immoral woman, though instead of offering a single night in her bed, wisdom offers to help the "simple" prepare for life itself, after the experience.
On appearance, the path rejecting wisdom is obviously more desirable, being a shortcut to an experience or circumstance. Why not just skip to the rewards and enjoy them first, and not worry about the consequences or what lays further down that same path? Who doesn't want to have enjoyable intimacy with another? Who doesn't want to be healthy, wealthy, and powerful in this material world?
The biggest problem here however is that the path does not end at an experience. Life goes on, and whether we want to admit it or not, everything is fleeting, temporary, transient, from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, the only constant is change. You may indeed have had a pleasurable night with the immoral woman, but then morning comes and a new day begins.
In popular culture, whether music or movies, and even in our own anecdotal experiences, we can resonate with the desire to "stop time" in a particular moment, during a particular experience, and just live there "forever". Taking pictures or recording video is a byproduct of this desire, when we capture some part of the present, soon to become the past, and can then "come back" to it in the future to "live in that moment" yet again.
But pictures fade, videos be lost, and despite our best efforts to capture an experience, we fight a losing battle against entropy.
So the next alternative we'd have is to just continuously top the experience. To never "come down from the high" in the first place, to always be pursuing experiences which overshadow all that came before, such that even if you cannot capture the past, it doesn't matter, the present and the future hold more for you anyway, so your history simply doesn't really play any role in your life, except for explaining how you got to where you currently stand in the present.
This might work, except that our biology works against us. Dopamine receptors, as part of the chemical side of "feeling good", adapt to the exposure in order to maintain a balance. When exposed to a consistent abundance, your body will adapt by reducing the sensitivity of the receptors. This is necessary as part of survival because the triggering of dopamine has a cascade of other affects in the brain, so if you were stuck in it permanently, you'd end up dead.
Due to our biology then, to sustain the same perceived "good" feeling, we must then pursue ever more extreme stimulus just to get the same sensation, or we have to spread it out so that we never adapt, right?
But then that's exactly what wisdom suggests, to not just pursue pleasure endlessly.
Does it start to make sense as to why wisdom leads to life and denying wisdom, let alone hating it, does not?
Wisdom is, simply put, "the best choice based on reality". Wisdom accounts for all consequences, for all possibilities, for the reality of what you will experience both in the moment and in all the moments that come after. This is why wisdom is aligned with life, and why she calls out to all to come and learn, and why she can claim so boldly that those who heed her lessons will find blessing or success in life.
You can reject wisdom and come to learn the same lesson the "hard" way, or arrive at understanding without the baggage and scars from having tried to take a shortcut. With wisdom, we are prepared and able to pursue new paths, but by rejecting wisdom, all we are left with is understanding of the true consequences for our actions on the paths we've already traveled.
Make the better choice at the start.
Showing posts with label Discretion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Discretion. Show all posts
15.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 7:10-20
And there a woman met him,
With the attire of a harlot, and a crafty heart.
She was loud and rebellious,
Her feet would not stay at home.
At times she was outside, at times in the open square,
Lurking at every corner.
So she caught him and kissed him;
With an impudent face she said to him:
“I have peace offerings with me;
Today I have paid my vows.
So I came out to meet you,
Diligently to seek your face,
And I have found you.
I have spread my bed with tapestry,
Colored coverings of Egyptian linen.
I have perfumed my bed
With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
Come, let us take our fill of love until morning;
Let us delight ourselves with love.
For my husband is not at home;
He has gone on a long journey;
He has taken a bag of money with him,
And will come home on the appointed day.”
Proverbs 7:10-20 (NKJV).
Appearances matter. While not the only thing that matters, they are not irrelevant in combination with behavior when it comes to the "beauty" of a woman. Notice the attributes that Solomon lists about the immoral woman, the things which would identify her.
Being "loud and rebellious" is something that should not surprise given the nature of Feminist movements in Western Civilization over the past century or so. Whether intentional or accidental, the theme of "not being heard" has shown up time and again in their propaganda, the implicit premise being that "men" aren't "listening", so women have to be louder, to make themselves heard, to affect the changes they feel are necessary. At no point does it seem to occur to them that men heard them all along, but just did not choose to act in the way requested of them during the chanting, marching, and screaming.
Now, this isn't because being louder isn't ever a signal of anything, the ability to "make yourself heard" is a dominance move, a showing of authority to have your words heard and obeyed. That is why the immoral woman is "loud and rebellious", because she is seeking to overturn the existing mechanisms or authority, of the order which provided her the safety and opportunity to be rebellious in the first place, all to satisfy her own desires, caring little of the future ramifications for the path she walks.
This is further highlighted by the amusing "her feet would not stay at home." Another facet of the efforts of Feminism has been to get young women out of the house as soon as possible and learning to be independent, all the while demanding that everyone else in society make the necessary accommodations so that these women can be protected from mistakes that they will make during this learning process.
While, traditionally, these were all lessons learned under the care and protection of the father and mother in the household, thanks to the shifts towards r-selection with an environment of abundance in our modern world, daughters and sons are pushed out of the home as soon as possible so that mom and dad can go back to having fun, and the kids "will be fine" without being actually being taught the basics of life.
Two different examples of this exact same dynamic are public breastfeeding and "rape culture" on college campuses. In both cases the arguments already start off "wrong", with most people skipping past the premises of the "problems" and pushing right on towards the main claims, never questioning whether even the circumstances that led to an issue existing were legitimate and necessary, let alone whether the accommodations that the rest of society makes are reasonable or not.
In the first, public breastfeeding is an entirely modern phenomenon because, again traditionally, mothers would not be going out in public on a frequent basis with such young children in the first place. There would be no impetus for the young mother to leave her home, go to a public place, and then put herself in a position of weakness. This is at some level because homes were not isolated from the rest of the community. Everyone knew everyone and if you needed supplies from the market, you had people you could trust that would get things for you while tending to the needs of your baby.
There was no question or debate on whether public breastfeeding was immodest or not because it simply wasn't happening. Women who'd just given birth would be cared for by those around them, the expectation was not that she had to do it all herself, and that leads us right into the next example.
College debt is said to be higher than it's ever been before, and yet that at the same time, more women are going to college than men, and yet women are still not getting the "high paying jobs" that are supposedly unlocked after attaining certain tiers of higher education. On top of that, it's very easy to find terrifying statistics that these young girls sent off on their own to school or work, all by themselves, are being sexually assaulted. Surely the response is that we should be doing a better job protecting and employing women, right? The whole arrangement would work out just fine except for all those terrible men taking advantage of women, right? We have to protect women from consequences they aren't prepared to handle on their own, right? Oh, no, women are "equals" and can "do anything a man could do better"? Hmm.
Young women traditionally didn't leave the house unless they were then entering the care and protection of another man, specifically their husband. That was the natural way to afford a woman complete protection from men who only had their sexual appetites in mind, but we had to destroy that framework because it limited her "freedoms", and now everyone is expected to come up with solutions which are never as effective or efficient, but that sustain the impression of rebellion.
Why is all this important to understand?
The immoral woman entices this effective stranger to enter her bed under the pretense of there being no consequences, no fear of being caught, and thanks to the "peace offering", she's prepared everything for a pleasurable experience without any apparent "risk" at all. The promise to the man from the immoral woman is that he will entertain great pleasure at no cost, and do not doubt that her offer is partly true, though she does not have the power to avert all the consequences of such illicit entanglements.
This is the deception that Solomon speaks about with "empty words". The immoral woman believes that her husband will not return early, but she does not control his schedule. The immoral woman believes that there won't be consequences, but they wouldn't fall most harshly on her in the first place either.
It is not hard to imagine a similar conversation between Adam and Eve after she had been deceived. Adam knew what was wise, but heeded the voice of his wife to disobey God. This pattern of behavior has been repeating over and over since the dawn of humanity.
It's all appearances, it's the appearance of desirability, it's the appearance of power, it's the appearance of authority, it's the appearance that all the problems can and will be ameliorated, it's the appearance that there is everything to gain and nothing to lose, but that's all it ever is, appearance.
This is why appearances matter, but can't be everything, because you have to see past appearances in order to see the trap being set for your soul. Solomon's cautions are to be aware of what appearances are, what they mean, what they are used for. We are not to ignore them, but understand them, and that is what the "youth" he is describing does not understand, does not have the wisdom to perceive.
Do not be like the ignorant youth.
With the attire of a harlot, and a crafty heart.
She was loud and rebellious,
Her feet would not stay at home.
At times she was outside, at times in the open square,
Lurking at every corner.
So she caught him and kissed him;
With an impudent face she said to him:
“I have peace offerings with me;
Today I have paid my vows.
So I came out to meet you,
Diligently to seek your face,
And I have found you.
I have spread my bed with tapestry,
Colored coverings of Egyptian linen.
I have perfumed my bed
With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
Come, let us take our fill of love until morning;
Let us delight ourselves with love.
For my husband is not at home;
He has gone on a long journey;
He has taken a bag of money with him,
And will come home on the appointed day.”
Proverbs 7:10-20 (NKJV).
Appearances matter. While not the only thing that matters, they are not irrelevant in combination with behavior when it comes to the "beauty" of a woman. Notice the attributes that Solomon lists about the immoral woman, the things which would identify her.
Being "loud and rebellious" is something that should not surprise given the nature of Feminist movements in Western Civilization over the past century or so. Whether intentional or accidental, the theme of "not being heard" has shown up time and again in their propaganda, the implicit premise being that "men" aren't "listening", so women have to be louder, to make themselves heard, to affect the changes they feel are necessary. At no point does it seem to occur to them that men heard them all along, but just did not choose to act in the way requested of them during the chanting, marching, and screaming.
Now, this isn't because being louder isn't ever a signal of anything, the ability to "make yourself heard" is a dominance move, a showing of authority to have your words heard and obeyed. That is why the immoral woman is "loud and rebellious", because she is seeking to overturn the existing mechanisms or authority, of the order which provided her the safety and opportunity to be rebellious in the first place, all to satisfy her own desires, caring little of the future ramifications for the path she walks.
This is further highlighted by the amusing "her feet would not stay at home." Another facet of the efforts of Feminism has been to get young women out of the house as soon as possible and learning to be independent, all the while demanding that everyone else in society make the necessary accommodations so that these women can be protected from mistakes that they will make during this learning process.
While, traditionally, these were all lessons learned under the care and protection of the father and mother in the household, thanks to the shifts towards r-selection with an environment of abundance in our modern world, daughters and sons are pushed out of the home as soon as possible so that mom and dad can go back to having fun, and the kids "will be fine" without being actually being taught the basics of life.
Two different examples of this exact same dynamic are public breastfeeding and "rape culture" on college campuses. In both cases the arguments already start off "wrong", with most people skipping past the premises of the "problems" and pushing right on towards the main claims, never questioning whether even the circumstances that led to an issue existing were legitimate and necessary, let alone whether the accommodations that the rest of society makes are reasonable or not.
In the first, public breastfeeding is an entirely modern phenomenon because, again traditionally, mothers would not be going out in public on a frequent basis with such young children in the first place. There would be no impetus for the young mother to leave her home, go to a public place, and then put herself in a position of weakness. This is at some level because homes were not isolated from the rest of the community. Everyone knew everyone and if you needed supplies from the market, you had people you could trust that would get things for you while tending to the needs of your baby.
There was no question or debate on whether public breastfeeding was immodest or not because it simply wasn't happening. Women who'd just given birth would be cared for by those around them, the expectation was not that she had to do it all herself, and that leads us right into the next example.
College debt is said to be higher than it's ever been before, and yet that at the same time, more women are going to college than men, and yet women are still not getting the "high paying jobs" that are supposedly unlocked after attaining certain tiers of higher education. On top of that, it's very easy to find terrifying statistics that these young girls sent off on their own to school or work, all by themselves, are being sexually assaulted. Surely the response is that we should be doing a better job protecting and employing women, right? The whole arrangement would work out just fine except for all those terrible men taking advantage of women, right? We have to protect women from consequences they aren't prepared to handle on their own, right? Oh, no, women are "equals" and can "do anything a man could do better"? Hmm.
Young women traditionally didn't leave the house unless they were then entering the care and protection of another man, specifically their husband. That was the natural way to afford a woman complete protection from men who only had their sexual appetites in mind, but we had to destroy that framework because it limited her "freedoms", and now everyone is expected to come up with solutions which are never as effective or efficient, but that sustain the impression of rebellion.
Why is all this important to understand?
The immoral woman entices this effective stranger to enter her bed under the pretense of there being no consequences, no fear of being caught, and thanks to the "peace offering", she's prepared everything for a pleasurable experience without any apparent "risk" at all. The promise to the man from the immoral woman is that he will entertain great pleasure at no cost, and do not doubt that her offer is partly true, though she does not have the power to avert all the consequences of such illicit entanglements.
This is the deception that Solomon speaks about with "empty words". The immoral woman believes that her husband will not return early, but she does not control his schedule. The immoral woman believes that there won't be consequences, but they wouldn't fall most harshly on her in the first place either.
It is not hard to imagine a similar conversation between Adam and Eve after she had been deceived. Adam knew what was wise, but heeded the voice of his wife to disobey God. This pattern of behavior has been repeating over and over since the dawn of humanity.
It's all appearances, it's the appearance of desirability, it's the appearance of power, it's the appearance of authority, it's the appearance that all the problems can and will be ameliorated, it's the appearance that there is everything to gain and nothing to lose, but that's all it ever is, appearance.
This is why appearances matter, but can't be everything, because you have to see past appearances in order to see the trap being set for your soul. Solomon's cautions are to be aware of what appearances are, what they mean, what they are used for. We are not to ignore them, but understand them, and that is what the "youth" he is describing does not understand, does not have the wisdom to perceive.
Do not be like the ignorant youth.
14.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 7:6-9
For at the window of my house
I looked through my lattice,
And saw among the simple,
I perceived among the youths,
A young man devoid of understanding,
Passing along the street near her corner;
And he took the path to her house
In the twilight, in the evening,
In the black and dark night.
Proverbs 7:6-9 (NKJV).
The phrase "if you play with fire, you're going to get burned" is meant to carry both literal and figurative meaning. A similar one is "a double-edged sword". Fires are a necessary component to advanced civilization, and swords are among the most efficient weapons for human combat.
In both phrases, what is trying to be communicated is that power comes at a price, that you cannot wield it without care, without discipline, without intention.
And the power to make choices and manifest actions is an even simpler power that humans have and often take entirely for granted.
In other writings across the internet, I've discussed the "decision making inputs" in the conceptual model I use for how people make a decision. Simply, that when humans make a choice, there are multiple inputs, not a singular cohesive stream of consciousness, and the one with the most persuasive power "wins out" and is then followed by the individual.
In animals, this almost always looks like:
Instinct = Decision
Even domesticated animals are merely "tamed" in the sense that we have found a way to short-circuit their instincts in a way that benefits us, and maybe even in turn them. A dog is still trying to be just like a wild wolf, but due to the genetic predisposition from selective breeding, in addition to the efforts of humans to "train" them through the use of conditioning, the instincts of the dog are re-written such that, while still lacking sentience, the dog's personality and behavior aligns to that of "their alpha" as part of a long-refined survival and reproductive strategy.
Some animals are nearly impossible to domesticate, and while it's entertaining to try and postulate that there is some spiritually significant reason why, the most simple answer is that unless a creature was created by God with the intent that they could be tamed, they can't be, because that "programming" exists in their genetics, and they don't have any other "inputs" to their decision making process.
If it wasn't genetic, then even the selective breeding done the "old fashioned way" would not have produced results, whether we're talking livestock or crops. Regardless of your opinion on GMOs, by definition if what is being done through that process does produce a result with tangible consequences, you must start every argument for or against that process with the full understanding of the power of genetics over the "default settings" of an organism.
For humans, our equation starts out like this:
Instinct + Intellect = Decision
Humans have an additional input to this process, and that's where the moral significance of our choices comes from, while not negating that we have instincts and "defaults" in our behavior patterns which come from our genetics, because without that input to decision making, we'd be puppets just acting out our biological "programming". Even so, the equation doesn't stop there for us.
Instinct + (Intellect + Wisdom) = Decision
Wisdom is often external, not something that we find in us as much as discover to be true. Much of Proverbs is geared towards this type of input, and while Solomon exhorts us to make that wisdom a part of us, to make it ingrained into our "hearts" or "minds", the source of that wisdom was outside of us.
Now, if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ? It changes yet again.
Instinct + (Intellect + Wisdom) + Holy Spirit = Decision
Our instincts and our intellect are all "of the flesh", but when we've been saved by Jesus Christ, we are imparted with a manifestation of God in the Holy Spirit that is a helper to us, and acts like another input into our decision making process to make our alignment with God's desires for us possible in the first place.
So why am I talking about all this?
The young man that Solomon is talking about, lacking understanding, is just running on instincts, not really thinking about or understanding what he's doing, and walking right into danger, possibly on purpose. In the daylight, it's harder to hide inappropriate interactions because everyone can see what's going on, everyone can see who is talking to who, the facial expressions, and so on, yet this young man is walking down the street near the corner of the harlot.
While responsibility is always superior to prohibition, some temptations are not worth exposing yourself to. While it'd be possible to visit, say, a beach in a sunny land and avoid lusting after women dressed in manners which accentuate their physical beauty, you'd still be playing with fire.
Likewise Solomon is trying to do is set the story up so that we know that this temptation likely could have been avoided altogether. That the choices of the young man are directly leading him towards temptation, and while having trust in God can help us escape temptation, we should not behave in a way which invites temptation into our lives through our own foolishness or ignorance. For as much as Solomon will speak poorly as to the intent of the harlot, blame is laid at the foot of those who go into her for not exercising control and discipline in all that lead up to their meeting with her.
Darkness, providing a type of isolation, can then sometimes be what gives us opportunity to sin. where we think the consequences of our choices will not be found out, that maybe we'll "get away with it."
The truth, as Solomon will detail as as he continues, is that nobody escapes the consequences of sin, and we only deceive ourselves when we think otherwise. So act with understanding, of all that you do and why, and learn just how your own behavior may be inviting destruction into your life.
I looked through my lattice,
And saw among the simple,
I perceived among the youths,
A young man devoid of understanding,
Passing along the street near her corner;
And he took the path to her house
In the twilight, in the evening,
In the black and dark night.
Proverbs 7:6-9 (NKJV).
The phrase "if you play with fire, you're going to get burned" is meant to carry both literal and figurative meaning. A similar one is "a double-edged sword". Fires are a necessary component to advanced civilization, and swords are among the most efficient weapons for human combat.
In both phrases, what is trying to be communicated is that power comes at a price, that you cannot wield it without care, without discipline, without intention.
And the power to make choices and manifest actions is an even simpler power that humans have and often take entirely for granted.
In other writings across the internet, I've discussed the "decision making inputs" in the conceptual model I use for how people make a decision. Simply, that when humans make a choice, there are multiple inputs, not a singular cohesive stream of consciousness, and the one with the most persuasive power "wins out" and is then followed by the individual.
In animals, this almost always looks like:
Instinct = Decision
Even domesticated animals are merely "tamed" in the sense that we have found a way to short-circuit their instincts in a way that benefits us, and maybe even in turn them. A dog is still trying to be just like a wild wolf, but due to the genetic predisposition from selective breeding, in addition to the efforts of humans to "train" them through the use of conditioning, the instincts of the dog are re-written such that, while still lacking sentience, the dog's personality and behavior aligns to that of "their alpha" as part of a long-refined survival and reproductive strategy.
Some animals are nearly impossible to domesticate, and while it's entertaining to try and postulate that there is some spiritually significant reason why, the most simple answer is that unless a creature was created by God with the intent that they could be tamed, they can't be, because that "programming" exists in their genetics, and they don't have any other "inputs" to their decision making process.
If it wasn't genetic, then even the selective breeding done the "old fashioned way" would not have produced results, whether we're talking livestock or crops. Regardless of your opinion on GMOs, by definition if what is being done through that process does produce a result with tangible consequences, you must start every argument for or against that process with the full understanding of the power of genetics over the "default settings" of an organism.
For humans, our equation starts out like this:
Instinct + Intellect = Decision
Humans have an additional input to this process, and that's where the moral significance of our choices comes from, while not negating that we have instincts and "defaults" in our behavior patterns which come from our genetics, because without that input to decision making, we'd be puppets just acting out our biological "programming". Even so, the equation doesn't stop there for us.
Instinct + (Intellect + Wisdom) = Decision
Wisdom is often external, not something that we find in us as much as discover to be true. Much of Proverbs is geared towards this type of input, and while Solomon exhorts us to make that wisdom a part of us, to make it ingrained into our "hearts" or "minds", the source of that wisdom was outside of us.
Now, if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ? It changes yet again.
Instinct + (Intellect + Wisdom) + Holy Spirit = Decision
Our instincts and our intellect are all "of the flesh", but when we've been saved by Jesus Christ, we are imparted with a manifestation of God in the Holy Spirit that is a helper to us, and acts like another input into our decision making process to make our alignment with God's desires for us possible in the first place.
So why am I talking about all this?
The young man that Solomon is talking about, lacking understanding, is just running on instincts, not really thinking about or understanding what he's doing, and walking right into danger, possibly on purpose. In the daylight, it's harder to hide inappropriate interactions because everyone can see what's going on, everyone can see who is talking to who, the facial expressions, and so on, yet this young man is walking down the street near the corner of the harlot.
While responsibility is always superior to prohibition, some temptations are not worth exposing yourself to. While it'd be possible to visit, say, a beach in a sunny land and avoid lusting after women dressed in manners which accentuate their physical beauty, you'd still be playing with fire.
Likewise Solomon is trying to do is set the story up so that we know that this temptation likely could have been avoided altogether. That the choices of the young man are directly leading him towards temptation, and while having trust in God can help us escape temptation, we should not behave in a way which invites temptation into our lives through our own foolishness or ignorance. For as much as Solomon will speak poorly as to the intent of the harlot, blame is laid at the foot of those who go into her for not exercising control and discipline in all that lead up to their meeting with her.
Darkness, providing a type of isolation, can then sometimes be what gives us opportunity to sin. where we think the consequences of our choices will not be found out, that maybe we'll "get away with it."
The truth, as Solomon will detail as as he continues, is that nobody escapes the consequences of sin, and we only deceive ourselves when we think otherwise. So act with understanding, of all that you do and why, and learn just how your own behavior may be inviting destruction into your life.
27.3.18
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.
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.
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