Woman looking thoughtfully at a trophy labeled achievement beside an open book

Winning in Life: The Power of Listening to Wisdom

“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.

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A Special Birthday Reflection

“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.” (CSB Proverbs 1:8-9 – Read the chapter)

Some of the best movies are the ones that create a potent sense of nostalgia around an idyllic childhood. The Sandlot is a classic in this genre. It is ostensibly a movie about baseball (and one of the greatest ever released), but it’s really a movie about nostalgia. It’s about making the viewer feel a certain way. Our culture is enamored with the idea that childhood should unfold in a certain way. It should be carefree and safe and familiar and encouraging and challenging and so on and so forth. It should happen in the context of a family with a mom and dad and a sibling or two. It should be happy and fun. On that score, my childhood was about as idyllic as they come. One of the two main reasons for that turns 70 today. This is for him.

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