After praying, I searched online for duvet cover instructions, and while what I found was not exactly what I was trying to do, I did get a few ideas. My biggest problem was how to close the opening. Buttons would not do because this was a baby’s duvet. Velcro didn’t seem like a good idea either. Then the idea popped into my head to use two zippers, two because it would be hard to find one lightweight zipper long enough. If I put the closed ends of the zippers toward the outside edges, they would open from the middle outward, be easy to manage, and create an uninterrupted enclosure for the opening to insert the duvet, one in which the baby could not entangle herself.
My first thought was, “Good idea, Elsie.” Immediately I corrected that. I’d prayed about this problem so needed to say, “Good idea, Lord” so I did.
My reading today is Proverbs 19:20. It says, “Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days.”
Even though this verse sounds like it, the educated person is not necessarily wise. In fact, I’ve met a few people that could almost be called ‘educated idiots’ because their degrees didn’t seem to affect their ability to make sound decisions in most areas of life. Wisdom isn’t something that comes just through knowing information. It is more than that.
A few years ago we were in an adult Sunday school class of a very large church. The people were randomly seated around small tables so we could discuss the lesson material. At our table were a few men with degrees in theology and one elderly lady who had very little education. English was not her first language and her clothing indicated that she did not have much money. However, she knew her Bible. As we talked, we were immediately aware that we were in the presence of a very wise woman. She received respect from everyone at the table.
In contrast, my devotional describes how I sometimes feel about my slowness to learn spiritual truth. I was quick in school and received high marks, but . . . “O what slow learners, what dull, forgetful scholars, what ignoramuses, what stupid blockheads, what stubborn pupils! Surely no scholar at a school, old or young, could learn so little of natural things as we seem to have learned of spiritual things after so many years’ instruction, so many chapters read, so many sermons heard, so many prayers put up, so much talking about religion.”
Yet as I read this and think about the woman in that Sunday class, I remember that true wisdom and the best education is about my relationship with God, not how smart I am or how quickly I learn. 1 Corinthians 1:30-31 says why:
But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”As my reading today says, if I have Him, I have everything, and if I don’t have Him I have nothing. The wisdom of this world, including any A’s I might have received in formal education, is superficial and flimsy compared to what Jesus offers. Besides, I am far too quick to glory in myself. I continually need the Lord’s reminder to get my focus off me and on Him.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 does it. “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,’ says the Lord.”
The reason that soft-spoken woman was so wise had nothing to do with her education or lack of it. She was wise because she knew Jesus and she gloried in that knowledge. As she did, He gave her secrets about life and living that she didn’t learn in school, things only the wisdom of God could provide.
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