Proverbs 6:2 if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth,
I said yes, and so everything changed. Initially, it seemed like there was synergy and purpose in the career move. But within a few months, I realised I had made a dreadful mistake.
There was really a lack of experience on my part, but also an unwillingness to trust on their part. The role was to manage, but it was their baby, this small family Company. They would loan their baby to me for a few moments and then take it back.
I gave all I had, often working 15 or 16hrs a day, so tired driving home that I was a risk to myself and others.
One day we were struggling to get the correct raw materials and it was a tricky spot. I was a little inexperienced in this area and was not sure of what to do.
The owners bought a truckload of poor quality imitation products and expected that we would process it and pass it off as the real deal.
My honour and heart left the company that day, and my body should have too!
I stayed another few weeks.
I had been too quick to say yes and said yes for all the wrong reasons at the start. It would have been better to stick it out where I was than jump into this situation.
And now I had lost both. The next few months were a time of reflection and self-pity. But……the best was yet to come!
KNOWLEDGE
How horrible is that moment when you realise that you have said something that you wish you had not, and that even if you apologise and ask for forgiveness, it would be so much better to have not said it at all?
In Matthew 12:36-37, we read “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned.”
That word for careless is “ἀργόν” which in this context could be read as “morally useless”.
Proverbs concern for wisdom is not around intellect, but moral purity. Wisdom equates to holiness. Our words will reflect the condition of our hearts. Oh God, please, that my heart would not be packed with morally useless wisdom and words. Jesus was talking in this passage to the teachers of the day.
For my words to have power and authority, I must make more and more room for Jesus in my life, else I start to speak from the dry well of human wisdom and experience.
How beautiful is it to be around people who flow with words of life, and hope, and challenge and courage? Let us proactively seek out these people and aim to be more like them through time with our Lord Jesus.
UNDERSTANDING
Let’s pick one word from this verse to look closer at and see if that can help us gain a deeper insight into how God would love us to live?
The word for “snared” in Hebrew is pronounced as “yaqas” and appears eight times in the Old Testament. In the ESV it is translated into the English word, snared or trap.
In verse two here it means really to become entangled.
WISDOM – how much do you pray before you speak?
STRENGTHS THOUGHT: Input, you have a lot of valuable information and experience, be judicious in how much to share and when to just listen.
Allan’s Unauthorised Version – [if you are trapped and entangled in your testimony, your sayings, your words, captured and taken possession in the words from your own mouth.]
PRAYER: Father, thank you for today. Help me to guard my heart, so that the words that flow from me would carry freedom for me and to others. Thank you.
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