I can be easily distracted, rabbit, as I walk through life. Some of it has to do with my ADHD tendencies. I have spent my adult life trying to focus. Like the character in the movie “Up” my life is filled with interesting distractions. That dog gets pulled aside in an instant by the smallest things. Sound familiar?
Our text today validates our universal tendency to get distracted from important things. The writer tells his reader to keep wisdom right in the center of his view. Just like texting and driving is dangerous, so navigating life without keeping wisdom as our anchor point is dangerous. We need to have it always right at our finger tips, right in our immediate surroundings. He uses the image of the necklace again.
So how long do I have to be distracted in order to get in trouble? With texting it only takes a second to make a fatal mistake. The proverb doesn’t say how long. It does say that keeping wisdom central will keep us safe. We won’t need to worry about enemies coming at night. Wisdom will give us warning so that we won’t be taken by surprise.
These sound like some pretty remarkable benefits. Why would anyone not listen to wisdom? Well, to be quite honest, because we don’t get to do what we want at the moment we want to. Wisdom will get in the way of our freedom, freedom to make stupid choices! We won’t be able to go our own way.
As Westerners, we value freedom above even making good decisions. If a decision inhibits freedom, we would rather make the wrong choice. And as a result, we are pretty messed up as a culture. We allow the porn industry access into every mobile device because we don’t want to impinge on the rights of those who exploit women and children. Porn has no redeeming value, but we stand side by side with the greatest perversions in the name of freedom.
In the name of freedom we beat up marriage as an institution because we are unwilling to declare that single parenting is not as healthy as having a mom and dad. So as a result we have 70% single parent births in some large sectors of our population leading to poverty that travels through generations. All this because we aren’t willing to hold men and women responsible for their sexual activities. Freedom!
Wisdom will guide if we are willing to heed its voice of instruction.
The Arnold Journey 