Thoughts from Proverbs 4

Joy plays a "would you rather" game for your future self, then reads Proverbs 4, applying truths from God's Word to our lives today! 

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Hello everyone, it's Troy. I hope you all had an awesome week. Today we are doing another Proverbs walkthrough, and today we are going to be reading and studying Proverbs 4. But first, I'm sorry this podcast came out day late because I had pre-recorded it and then it got deleted, so I had to come back to church and do it again. So before we get started, let's play a game. So this game is a would you rather game, but it's for your future self. So all the questions I ask, for example, would be like, would you rather have a home library or a home movie theater? Questions like that. So here we go. I also have 11 questions, by the way. Number one, would you rather live in the country or in the city? I would hate, hate, hate to live in the country. I just live in a neighborhood now, but I just feel like I would feel so alone in the country, and I would just love to live in the city because I love the feel of like city life. Um I just it just I love it because you can just like walk to everything and I can have like an apartment that's high up in the middle of the city. That's just be like my dream. Um yeah. I don't feel like I would want to live in the country, but if I had to, I guess I would. Um number two, would you rather live near the beach or in the mountains? I actually did live in the mountains for about two years in North Carolina. It was really, really hard to drive up there though, because we couldn't really go on walks because we had to go all the way down the mountain and it was really steep and dangerous, but there was like a really cool creek and we lived in like in the woods. So I would have to say beach, but not like on the beach, maybe like near a beach. Not yeah. Okay, number three, would you rather own a big house or a small cozy house? Well, if I'm gonna live in the city, I probably wouldn't get a big house. So I would like a small cozy house, but I guess it would depend on how big my family was. So I guess if I was just living by myself, a small cozy house. Um, number four, would you rather have lots of pets or no pets? I'm actually terrified of dogs and cats, but if I had to pick lots of pets or no pets, that's a pretty big jump. I guess I would say lots of pets, but they'd be like a lot of cows. And I know I want to live in the city, but not the country, but you kinda have to live in the country to have cows, so maybe I would just like get cows and put them in the country and then just like go back and forth. I don't know. I'm I don't know. Or maybe I can get a couple fish or something. I don't know. Number six, I think, five. Would you rather drive a truck or an SUV? I do not want a truck and I don't want an SUV, but I guess if I had to pick one, I'd do SUV. Next one, would you rather have a big family or a small family? I only want like three or four kids, so I guess I would say I don't know if that's big or small. I guess it might be big for some people. To me that's small because we have five kids. But well my parents have five kids, but however you want to I don't know. I guess small. If that's small, I guess to some people that might be big. I don't know. Next one, would you rather stay close to where you grew up or move across the country? I don't think I would want to move across the country, maybe just like a few states over, but probably stay close to where I grew up. The next one, would you rather travel all the time or mostly stay home? I don't like staying at home. I kinda think it's boring, and I also don't like to travel all the time, so maybe a couple vacations here and there, but not heavy, heavy all the time. Next one, would you rather have lots of land or live in a neighborhood where everyone is close by? I would love where everyone is close by for like the start of my adult life. Maybe down the road I could like live in a neighborhood where like people are still close, but I'm not like really really close to them, and I could have a couple cows, but next one. Would you rather work from home or work somewhere you get to see people every day? I would love to see people every day. I don't want to stay at home and work. I just think that would be really sad and boring. But I don't also want to like be crowded with people, so maybe like yeah, I don't actually know. Okay, and the next one is like a bonus one. I just had to put it in because I liked it. Would you rather decorate your house in a modern style or cozy farmhouse style? I want the best of both. I want a modern farmhouse. But I guess if I'm gonna live in an apartment in the city, that might not happen, but we'll see. Okay, well, I hope you had fun with that future self would you rather game. Now we can do our highs and lows before we start reading Proverbs 4. So my high was that actually this is from last week, but I had an awesome week at camp. I made a lot of good decisions, um, I made a lot of friends, and my team for the week actually won. I've actually never won before. And the party was really fun. We had pizza and the soda was brand, it was on brand. And the camp staff were like banging pots and pans, and it was so loud, but it was really fun. And there were people like doing backflips. It was really cool. And then I also wasn't on a team by myself. There was another girl um who was on the junior high team, and then two other girls were on the senior high team, and then a couple other people um from my church too. And my love is that I passed the swim test, which was good, but then I didn't even go in the deep end of the pool the whole week. I only took it because I asked one of the counselors who like worked there if I should, and she said I would probably regret it if I didn't do it. So I did it because I thought to myself, well, later in the week I might want to go in the deep end, and I didn't want to all week, so I guess it was for nothing. But oh well. I still got to wear the wristband that tells everyone you can go in the deep end, so I guess we can just get into Proverbs 4 now. So here's Proverbs 4. He hear ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to no understanding. For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law. For I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He taught me also and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom and understanding, forget it not, neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall she shall preserve thee. Love her and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore get wisdom and with all thy get getting get understanding. Exalt her and she shall promote thee. She shall bring thee to honor when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine hand an ornament of grace, a cr a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee. Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of thy life shall be many. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom, I have led thee in right paths. When thou goest thy steps shall not be straightened, and when thou runnest thou shalt not stumble. Take fast hold of instruction, let her not go, keep her, for she is thy life. Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn away from it, and pass away. For they sleep not except they have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. But the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness, they know not what they stumble. My son, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let not let them not depart from thine eyes, keep them in the midst of thine heart, for they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a forward mouth, and preserve lips put far from thee. Perverse lips put far from thee. Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left, remove thy foot from evil. Okay, so now we can talk about some things we could have learned from that chapter and some ways we can apply this chapter to our lives. So as I was reading Proverbs 4, one thing that really stood out to me was how much God like wants us to choose wisdom. And I feel like that's just like a theme throughout Proverbs. Um, and also really throughout the whole chapter, Solomon actually just keeps telling his son to get wisdom and understanding because they're worth more than anything else. It made me actually think about how many like decisions we make every day. Some of them may seem small and some of them are actually life-changing, but every decision matters, whether it's small or big. If we're trying to follow God without asking him for wisdom, though, we're eventually going to make the wrong choices. We shouldn't, or we should be praying every day that God will give us wisdom so we can make decisions that honor him instead of just doing whatever feels right in the moment. That's why you shouldn't, if you have a big decision to make, you shouldn't just be going right into it and saying, Oh no, what do I do? You should pray for a while and try to know what he would have you do. Another thing I noticed is that Proverbs 4 talks a lot about the path we're walking. We're all headed somewhere. Every choice we make is taking us one step closer to God or one step farther away from him. And I love how verse 18 says, But the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more onto the perfect day. That reminds me that the Christian life is a journey and we aren't expected to know everything overnight. But as we keep walking with God and staying faithful to him, he continues to grow us and help us and um become more like him. So the question we have to ask ourselves is what path am I on? Because the direction you're going today will determine where you end up tomorrow. Um, probably my favorite verse in this chapter is a Proverbs 423. Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Um I think I actually have that highlighted in my Bible, but I think this is something we all need to hear. We have to be careful what we allow into our hearts. Um, the music we listen to, the shows we watch, the people we spend time with, um the things we scroll through online, they all affect us, whether we realize it or not. And um, we could say, oh, well, the guy who made it's a Christian. Well, is he acting like a Christian or is he being worldly? If we're constantly filling our hearts with things that pull us away from God, we shouldn't be surprised when we start drifting. And you might not even realize it at the time, but if we want to stay close to God, we have to guard our hearts and minds because everything else flows from there. The last thing that really challenged me was how practical this chapter is. And reading it, you probably don't realize it, but it is. It talks about our words, our eyes, our feet, and the direction of our lives. Um, in other words, God cares about every part of us, and he doesn't just want us to look like Christians on Sundays and Wednesdays or whatever. He wants us to live for him every single day. That means watching what we say and being careful where we go, paying attention to what we're looking at, and making sure we're following his word instead of following the world. So if I had to sum up Proverbs 4 in one sentence, it would be this: Choose God's way before the world chooses it for you. Get wisdom, guard your heart, stay on the right path, and don't wait until you've wandered away to start taking your walk with God seriously. Every decision you make today is shaping who you'll become tomorrow. Um, so my prayer and thought after reading this chapter is that I won't just know what God's word says, but that I'll actually live it out every day because that's when it like truly starts changing your life. And actually, I just started doing something different for my devotions ever since I got back from camp, actually. I um read the Proverbs of the Day, and then once I finish Proverbs, I'll probably go to a different book. But I read the Proverbs of the Day, and then I write what I learn and all the verses I highlighted, and then I'll do a devotion out of this little devotion like every two months um that my church gets. It's really good. And then I read a chapter in Genesis, and um, yeah, so yeah, that's all for today. Um, I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Make sure to check out our Instagram page at Faithfully Here Podcast. This has been Joyce Stansel, and I'll see you next week on the Faithfully Here Podcast. Bye.