“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching, for they will be a garland of favor on your head and pendants around your neck.” (Proverbs 1:8-9 CSB – Read the chapter)

It’s fun to win. Winners get trophies and medals and certificates and awards. You can display those where people can see them and know that you won, that you were awesome. They are tangible proof that you accomplished something good or even great. Yes, in a culture that gives participation trophies, winning becomes diluted to the point that no one cares quite as much about it as they once did, but by that kind of progressive, make-everyone-feel-good thinking can’t erase our desire to win entirely. We want to win. Well, Solomon here tells us a way we can win in life. Let’s check out what it is.

For the most part, there are two kinds of people in this world. The first kind was raised in such a way that they struggle a great deal with self doubt. They constantly question their own decisions. They bear a great deal of insecurity regarding the path they are walking. They gobble up affirmation like Halloween candy. These kinds of folks are often identified by the fact that they are regularly asking other people what they think about what they should do. They are often very susceptible to the strong opinions of others whether those opinions are good or bad.

The second kind of people are the ones who think they are always right. They may have been raised to deal with self doubt like the first group, but they responded to it by swinging the pendulum way over in the other direction. They not only always know what they want to do, they are utterly convinced that they know better what they should do than anyone else. They almost never solicit the counsel of others, and even when that counsel is offered freely from legitimate and trustworthy sources, they don’t take it. They’ll listen to your opinion if your opinion happens to align with theirs, but beyond that, you might as well be talking to a wall.

Like I said, most people fall into one of these two categories. But there is a third group. These folks combine the best of both of these two worlds. They have the confidence of the second group, but the willingness to heed counsel of the first. They are self-assured, but also humble. They trust themselves to make wise decisions, but this is only because they have spent a lifetime listening to good counsel, acting on it, and learning from it. And, although they trust themselves, they also recognize that they will sell themselves on a bad idea really quickly, and so they are very willing to solicit wise counsel from trustworthy sources and make adjustments when they need to do so.

It takes a great deal of humility to recognize and heed sound wisdom. And, let’s remember that humility is fundamentally about honesty. The essence of humility is being about who God is, who we are, and our willingness to live in light of those two realities. The one who is humble is able to live with the fact that he doesn’t know everything. He is able to receive correction with graciousness, and he never holds on to his opinions very tightly. If we are going to receive any benefit from our journey through the Proverbs, it is going to require a great deal of humility. We need to engage with what we are going to encounter like a child receiving instruction and counsel from loving parents who are deeply trusted.

“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching.” Proverbs is set up like a father giving wisdom to his child. It is notable here, though, that both dad and mom are mentioned. The call here is to respect the godly wisdom of our parents. Yes, it’s true that not all parents offer godly wisdom or examples. Mine certainly did much to my own benefit, but that’s far from a universal reality. But what we have in God is a heavenly Father who is the source of all wisdom. We are receiving His wisdom in these pages, and we do well to listen carefully.

If we will do that, we will find ourselves winning at life more often than not. “They will be a garland of favor on your head and pendants around your neck.” In order to become adept at a particular sport, a player has to be coachable. An uncoachable player may have a great degree of natural talent, but unless she is willing to accept coaching and correction from a coach who knows more about the game and has more wisdom for how to get it right, she will never develop fully into the kind of player she could be.

The Kansas City Royals had a player a few years ago who was really good. He was especially good in the field and rightly won several golden gloves. But he was never more than a slightly about average hitter. A big part of the reason for this is that he would never take the counsel of his hitting coaches when it came to his swing. They wanted him to make some fundamental changes in his approach that could have resulted in his hitting with a great deal more proficiency and power, but he wouldn’t do it. So, he stayed just barely above average. It was the difference between his merely being really good and his achieving greatness in the sport.

In this life, some folks seem more naturally inclined to succeed than others, but no one gets it all right every time. And we don’t know everything. Not even close. On our own, we will make the decision that makes the most sense to us, but that won’t by any means always be the right decision. In fact, in most cases, it’ll be the wrong decision. We have to be willing to seek and heed wise counsel. In this collection, we are going to encounter a great deal of wise counsel. It won’t always be what we expect, but if we will take it and adjust our decision making accordingly, we will find ourselves winning our way through life a whole lot more often than otherwise. Let’s put on some humility, then, and prepare for a fruitful journey.