Fidelity to wisdom

This week's verses are on Proverbs 2:6-20:

For the Lord gives wisdom,
and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
He stores up effective counsel for the upright,
and is like a shield for those who live with integrity,
to guard the paths of the righteous
and to protect the way of his pious ones.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity—every good way.
For wisdom will enter your heart,
and moral knowledge will be attractive to you.
Discretion will protect you,
understanding will guard you,
to deliver you from the way of the wicked,
from those speaking perversity,
who leave the upright paths
to walk on the dark ways,
who delight in doing evil,
they rejoice in perverse evil;
whose paths are morally crooked,
and who are devious in their ways;
to deliver you from the adulteress,
from the sexually loose woman who speaks flattering words;
who leaves the husband from her younger days,
and forgets her marriage covenant made before God.
For her house sinks down to death,
and her paths lead to the place of the departed spirits.
None who go in to her will return,
nor will they reach the paths of life.
So you will walk in the way of good people,
and will keep on the paths of the righteous.

These verses are describing how God's wisdom helps us and protects us. Staying faithful to the wisdom he shares with us is like being faithful to a good wife. You're not going to do better and you could do a whole lot worse.

On the other hand, foolishness is compared to a sexually loose woman who speaks flattering words and isn't faithful to her husband. How many times are we tempted and seduced by stupidity in our lives? The wrong thing seems so exciting and fun and sweet, until finally it can't help but reveal itself for what it is.

And so reading these verses we're given a choice. Do we want God's healthy, faithful, attractive wisdom, or do we want the dangerous, unfaithful, unrewarding foolishness that tries to steal our love from him? One leads you to God's treasures in eternity, and the other leads to destruction.

If there's anything you struggle with being tempted by, or anything you have acquired from God that you delight in, read these verses and remind yourself of the choices we're faced every day. Move in with God and kick the foolishness to the curb.