31 Days With the Book of Proverbs: A Daily Bible Study – Day 29
“Happy is the one who is never without fear, but one who is hard-hearted will fall into calamity.”
Proverbs 28:14
“Happy” can also be translated “Blessed.” And in Proverbs “fear” reminds us of “the fear of the Lord” which is the beginning of wisdom. So the proverb has layers of meaning. Perhaps it points to the attitude of the person who loves God! Blessed Is the person who constantly seeks and loves God and honors Him. Contrast such a person with someone whose has a hard heart, reminding ourselves that the “heart” was considered the seat of the will, of the mind, of love, and, of course, of wisdom. So someone whose heart had no love, no will seeking God, no understanding of applying God’s truth to life, and thus pursues folly is certainly to be contrasted to someone whose life was oriented around the honor of God!
How do we help others to find such blessing and happiness? Especially as we live in a day of the “dones” (those who are finished with the traditional church) and the “nones” (those who have no faith whatever!). More folks count themselves as part of these two groups every year! They are done, or in many cases, they have none. They are not likely to wander into our sanctuaries on Sunday morning. We have to seek them out. Perhaps the Covid-19 pandemic has jarred us out of our comfortable habits to seek new ways to share worship and faith with our fellow parishioners, and in so doing to reach out to new nodes of networking, to situations that may contain the possibilities of sharing a “warm heart.” Proverbs you see are not just pithy saying of yesterday. In many cases they are spirit filled propellants into a new tomorrow,
Drew Harvey
Brody Childs on Unsplash
