Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father make us more like His Son, today. Father we daily wage war against the sin within us, in our hearts. Help us to struggle, to wrestle, to fight, to resist, to deny ourselves. Calm our hearts and minds, and give us the patience and grace to listen well. Steady our emotions and kill our pride, and give us the will to ignore insults. Father, in the name of your Son Jesus, and by the Spirit alive within us, may we relate to one another in ways that please you. And may we repent to you and each other when we do not. Amen.
Your Morning Song: "Rise Up (Lazarus)" by CAIN
Your Morning Scripture: Proverbs 12:15-16
The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.
Fools show their annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult.
...
These two verses, at a glance, seem to be talking about two different situations. But they are linked. How could advice and insult be linked?
Notice how the wise listen to the advice and overlook the insult. They receive the first and graciously avoid the second. Now the fool. They avoid the first and greedily embrace the second.
Which pattern best describes us? Setting aside the cop-out of "we could all do better," let's honestly consider the evidence of our daily living, our attitudes and our habits.
How approachable and teachable are we? How easily do we let insults slide past us? These are hard questions to answer, and we should not be too quick to trust our first response. Often times we are unaware of our own struggles in these areas. It is humbling, humiliating even, how often our weak-spots are our blind-spots. And we often hate the shadow of our struggle that we are too quick to see in someone else. And so, these sorts of questions, which so often and so profitably arise in Proverbs, are very much worth asking ourselves, if we are brave.
If we're really brave, we'll ask those closest to us these questions.
Who are we to ignore advice? Who are we to take offense?
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