Hey Guys,
This is not a "mission" post. If you're looking for that, stop reading here. It's a personal learning post, but it's part of the journey, right?
This morning I read these verses:
Proverbs 25:7-10
What you have seen with your eyes
do not bring hastily to court,
for what will you do in the end
if your neighbor puts you to shame?
If you argue your case with a neighbor,
do not betray another man's confidence,
or he who hears it may shame you
and you will never lose your bad reputation.
Ouch! Stabbed in my guilty heart! How many times have I told someone (even my own husband) what I saw another person doing for my own purposes--either to prove my point, or justify my feelings about that person or situation--only to discover later that my assumptions were wrong? I "brought them hastily to court" so to speak, without first learning the truth of the matter, and I felt ashamed.
How many times have I, when arguing with my neighbor, felt that my position needed reinforcement, maybe because of my own insecurities or because I didn't know how to deal with a forceful personality? In those times, have I slipped in something that someone told me in confidence to try to "solidify" my argument and "outnumber" their objections? Convicted! Painfully the knife twists.
Is my reputation tarnished forever?
But I don't really need to worry about that, because each day that God wakes me up is a day to hope! HE hasn't given up on me! When I feel convicted while reading the Bible, it is encouraging "because the Lord disciplines those He loves" (Proverbs 3:12). That means God loves me! He still has a plan for my life. He forgives me and is creating in me a clean heart.
This is His promise:
I will write my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more. (Jeremiah 31:33,34)
Thanks be to God! Thus He can make my words honest, helpful, and beautiful, "like apples of gold in setting of silver." (Proverbs 25, the next verse.)
I want to live for Him.
