I went to several parties in High School. They were your typical high school parties with a lot of craziness and little accountability. I thought I could handle it without doing anything stupid. I heard adults say it was a bad idea, but in my mind I was smarter than them. Now God has made me a youth pastor, I love the irony.
Proverbs has a lot to say about wisdom and what it means to walk in wisdom. There are 4 kinds people talked about the most. There is the simple, the fool, the mocker, and the wise. Today we are going to talk only about the first two.
The Simple
The simple person is someone who lacks experience. There is nothing wrong with them, they are just simple. Their perspective of how the world works and what wisdom really looks like is limited to their personal experience. They have not yet learned to trust what other peoples experiences have shown them. Taylor Swift says it best, “when your 15 and someone tells you they love you, your going to believe them.”
Some phrases of the simple: “Nothing is going to happen.” I am sure you have never used this line, maybe it is just me. Wisdom does not come natural at this phase of life. How many of us have stories we wish we didn’t have because we have said this. Another phrase is “I can handle it” So many men I know have addictions and worse stories as a result of this attitude. The older we get we don’t say this out loud, we just think it and do it anyway. Or “Your Overreacting.” How many times have we said or thought this to our wives, bosses, pastors, or God? We make little of things that are not big deals yet, but we all know how it ends.
The cure for the simple is time and applying wisdom learned from others. So where are you walking with a simple mindset and refusing to walk in wisdom?
The Fool
The fool knows wisdom but doesn’t care. Their attitude is “I don’t give a ________” Depending on who you hang out with determines how they fill in that blank.
Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.
Proverbs 10:23 A fool finds pleasure in wicked schemes,
Fools don’t learn from their mistakes and they find pleasure in their defying wisdom! They do not have their best interest in mind. Now if you are friends with a fool…
Proverbs 13:20 Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.
The fool gets people hurt. They do not care about the consequences of their decisions. They do not care about their body of their future. They get people and themselves hurt.
Where are you walking as a fool? You know the road you are on ends bad, but you do it anyway. You know you need to bring something to the light but fear holds you captive.
The cure for the fool is tragedy. They will eventually suffer harm. So where do you have a “I don’t care attitude?” Where do you need to seek wisdom?
Recklessly, obsessively following Jesus
Brandon Sereg
