Meditations through the Proverbs

Written by Harold Thornbro

Proverbs 1:8-19

(8) Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, (9) for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck. (10) My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. (11) If they say, "Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason; (12) like Sheol let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; (13) we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; (14) throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse"-- (15) my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, (16) for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. (17) For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, (18) but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives. (19) Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.

An old method for catching raccoons is to place a piece of foil inside a small barred box that is staked to the ground. When a raccoon comes by, he reaches his paw into the box to get the foil. But, once he has grasped the foil, his paw changes shape and will not fit back through the bars on the box. Many times the raccoon would rather give up his freedom and perhaps his life – just for the sake of a shiny but useless piece of foil.

The person described in Proverbs 1:8-19 and this raccoon sound an awful lot alike. It sounds safe to say it like that but really me and that raccoon sound an awful lot alike and perhaps you find yourself in that picture as well. How easy it is to get side tracked by the things of this world and the greed in our hearts and it is only by the grace of God we don’t take as far as the person described in this proverb. Consider the wisdom presented here in this proverb, the things of this world are temporary and in light of eternity they are as worthless as a piece of shiny foil, yet they entice us. The bible tells us this is not our home, that we are travelers in a foreign land, and not to lay up our treasures in this world but in the world to come. So let us heed the words of this proverb and keep our eyes on the real prize and not the shiny foils of this world, lest we are unable to let go and suffer the fate of one who really never had his eyes upon the real prize.

The bible tells us in Romans 8:38-39 that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord but the bible also tells us in 1 John 2:15-17 “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” So then let us pray that the Lord would loosen our grip on the things of this world and tighten our grip on Him that we may abide with Him forever, this is the real prize.