Tag: Humility

A person sits across a table from a wise, caring mentor figure who is speaking earnestly and gesturing gently. The seated person has their arms crossed, jaw set, eyes slightly averted — clearly hearing the words but internally resisting them. Warm, soft lighting. The mood is intimate and a little uncomfortable. The advice-giver's expression is kind, not harsh. Painterly, editorial illustration style with muted warm tones and a slight chiaroscuro quality. No text.

The Offense of Good Advice

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“Then Elisha sent him a messenger, who said, ‘Go wash seven times in the Jordan and your skin will be restored and you will be clean.’ But Naaman got angry and left, saying, ‘I was telling myself: He will surely come out, stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the skin disease. Aren’t Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be clean?’ So he turned and left in a rage.” (2 Kings‬ ‭5‬:‭10‬-‭12‬ ‭CSB – Read the chapter) ‬‬

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about good advice. When we set out accomplish we haven’t done before and aren’t totally sure how to do it, it’s always a good idea to seek out good and wise counsel from someone who has been there before. The trouble with good advice, though, is that just because a particular bit of advice is good, doesn’t mean we necessarily like it or want to hear it. Let’s reflect for a little while today about a story when someone got good advice they didn’t like, and what wisdom that might have to offer us.

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Hiker choosing between trails marked “EASY PATH” and “HARDER PATH”

A Choice of Two Paths

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“Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. The remembrance of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot. A wise heart accepts commands, but foolish lips will be destroyed. The one who lives with integrity lives securely, but whoever perverts his ways will be found out. A sly wink of the eye causes grief, and foolish lips will be destroyed.”(Proverbs‬ ‭10‬:‭6‬-‭10‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

While the world loves to paint with shades of gray, in the final analysis, there will be two kinds of people in this world: the righteous and the wicked. Proverbs not only offers counsel for how to be one instead of the other, it furnishes numerous examples of the outcomes one will experience or cause to be experienced versus the other. Now, the Gospel helps us paint with more nuance than the Old Testament sometimes does, but still, learning to recognize the path that will lead to one end and the path that will lead to the other is worthwhile. Let’s take a look at some pointers in this passage.

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Older woman and man walking with young girl hand in hand on a forest path at sunset

The Worth of Wise Counsel

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“My son, keep your father’s command, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching. Always bind them to your heart; tie them around your neck. When you walk here and there, they will guide you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; when you wake up, they will talk to you. For a command is a lamp, teaching is a light, and corrective discipline is the way to life.” (Proverbs‬ ‭6‬:‭20‬-‭23‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

I once saw a magnet on somebody’s fridge that made me chuckle. It said, “Ask a teenager while they still know everything.” The idea is one that is certainly familiar to anybody who has navigated the journey of parenting. The confidence of ignorance that youth invites is a potent draught. Nobody at that age wants to listen to the counsel of their parents. Even as we grow, though, we don’t get much better at taking sound advice. To do that means acknowledging that we don’t know everything, and for most of us we are loathe to do that. Solomon’s wisdom here is something all of us could benefit from. Let’s talk about it.

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Person standing on a rocky mountain looking at the star-filled night sky with the Milky Way visible

Humility and Knowledge: Discovering Real Truth

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“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and discipline.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever known something that turned out not to be true? You were as sure as the world that you had your facts straight until you learned beyond any shadow of doubt that you didn’t. Did you really know it at all? Can you know something that isn’t true? That’s a far more difficult philosophical question to answer than it perhaps seems. All true knowledge is rooted in a foundation of truth. If something doesn’t correspond with reality, we can’t really know it. This means that all knowledge starts with knowing the source of reality. Let’s talk about it.

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Person in hoodie sitting on rock facing ocean sunset

Digging in Deeper: Colossians 3:12-14

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“Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In my Bible app (I use the YouVersion Bible App which is absolutely worth using if you don’t already have one you like), one of the features is that it allows you to make and save notes about individual verses. Once you have done that, it puts a little blue box around the verse number. This probably won’t surprise you, but I don’t remember every verse I’ve ever written on over the years. I’ve made hundreds of notes in the app and written about many more verses directly on here. Much of my writing, though, comes out of notes I have made on the app. It’s always at least a little interesting when in looking for a verse that captures the heart of something I’m going to write about, I find that it has already served that purpose in the past. That happened this morning as I sat down to write. And appropriately enough, the theme I was writing about a year and a half ago is about the same theme we’re going to talk about today which happens to be conflict resolution. Then it was through the lens of Despicable Me 4. Today it’s through the lens of a great new movie called Green and Gold and yet another episode of Abbott Elementary.

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