The Proverbs :: A Guidebook for MenSample

It felt like quicksand would be a bigger problem in day-to-day life. Everything from movies to books to school made it seem like the knowledge to keep still and wait for help rather than thrashing around in a pit of sinking sand would come in handy a few times a year. We can’t account for everyone reading this, but at least around here, we have yet to put this valuable survival skill into practice. Interestingly, though, while we seemed to have all been trained at one point or another to escape a slow and gritty demise, very few of us could identify quicksand if we stumbled upon it. All these years later, we must ask, wouldn’t teaching us to avoid it be just as important as escaping it? In the first four Proverbs, we were introduced to wisdom personified through Lady Wisdom, a walking, talking personification of the beauty and guidance God offers us through His freely available understanding. Proverbs 5 introduces a new character in the story. Foolishness arrives on the scene, coupled with a warning: Keep a path far from her. You see, Foolishness is out to destroy you. Like the enemy, she is constantly on the prowl, working to seduce you away from the things of God, from Wisdom, and much like the quicksand traps of our cinematic childhood, you can get stuck before you even know it. Look at verses 8-9, a dire warning against any proximity to this adulterous woman. Just wandering close to her door due to curiosity or intrigue can cause you to forsake your dignity and lose all God has meant for you. The lie is that we can dip our toes into ruin and somehow stop ourselves from drowning in it. Avoiding the quicksand of temptation is critical. It requires us to walk with our eyes up and to be attentive to what is happening around us, lest a lack of discipline leads us down the path of destruction. If you find yourself at the door of Foolishness today, remember back to Proverbs 1 and rejoice. Let today remind you to turn from that wicked door and run towards Wisdom. All God is asking of you is to repent, acknowledge your sin, and ask forgiveness, and then He will pour out His blessed thoughts upon you and make His ways your ways. The cost is too great to wait lest you walk even one more step towards the snares of wickedness. — Lord, today we remember the times we have grown curious of sin and wandered close to the door of temptation, of the times we walked through that door. We ask for Your forgiveness and purification so that Your thoughts and ways will transform our own.