because my life verse is in this chapter of proverbs....
i think i will start signing my name and add proverbs 26:11 (just the address, not the verse and let people look it up on their own...)
which reminds me of a story about LIVE VERSES... i was at a youth camp and there was the ONE guy that EVERYONE who has ever been to youth camp knows will be there...
SUPER RELIGIOUS in a really obnoxious way guy. HOLIER THAN THOU guy. FIRST IN THE LINE TO HEAVEN guy (and pushing you out of his way to get there).
(and i know sometimes it isn’t a guy, it is a girl, but at this camp and this time, it was a guy).
he annoyed me (and everyone else) with his pithy interjections of Bible verses for every situation and his whole attitude of religious one-up-manship. one time i made a comment about how i didn’t like something in the meal and he busted out with “judge not, lest ye be judged”. like me judging the icky steamed broccoli was going to be on my permanent record...
“so lea why should i let you into my glorious heavenly home when you detested my creation of broccoli that one night at camp?” spaketh the LORD (like i think God doesn’t use capitals either).
so that last night we all sat around the campfire and signed each others t-shirts and were supposed to add our “LIFE VERSE” reference under our signature. and a bunch of us (yes, me included) were running for our Bibles to find a “LIFE VERSE” and this HOLY ROLLER guy was making fun of us for not KNOWING where our LIFE VERSE was in the Bible. and so he confidently wrote GALATIANS 5:2-3 under his name on every t-shirt. without checking his Bible because he was SUPER HOLY guy.
and that night they had a special ceremony where everyone walked in one by one holding a lit candle and it was all serious and someone was playing “just as i am” on the piano and they read that person’s LIFE VERSE as they were walking in...
and this is what they read for that boy...
Galatians 5:2-3
Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.
He had meant to put some other verses in galatians and he had gotten the address wrong. and it made us all do that really bad “in church and we shouldn’t be laughing” laugh. and i burned myself with hot wax dripping off of my candle but it was SO worth it to see that boy’s face when they read that verse.
and i wish i had thought to put this proverb as my life verse because that would have be AWESOME to walk into the room holding a lit candle and hear this verse read...
proverbs 26:11
As a dog returns to its vomit,
so a fool repeats his folly.
however it is not that awesome to be that fool returning to her folly time and time again. because i do so smell the stench of my own vomit sometimes as i return again and again to my folly.
stong’s concordance gives this definition of “folly”...
- despising wisdom
- quarrelsome
- mocking when guilty
- licentious (lacking moral, especially sexual, restraints)
oh, yes. i recognize that kind of folly. and definition #3 is my personal favorite type of vomit to return to...
i find that the more i mock something, the more i point out the sins of others, the MORE it is that i am trying to cover up my own guilty spirit.
and again, if i will just link a few visual emotional reminders in my mind during this month of living proverbially it will help me to remember some of these proverbs and maybe just maybe help me to live wiser...
when i despise correction, it is like despising the person pulling my skirt over my underwear
if i do not discipline and limit my children, i am leading them to their executions
and when i mock others sins, i am returning to my own vomit.
ugh. just. ugh.
so sorry that i mocked HOLLY ROLLER guy’s sins because i had PLENTY of my own sins that i could have mocked. but it does make a nice point for those of you trying to find LIFE VERSES.... know where yours is before you write it on a tshirt... or don’t be too proud to double check those kinds of things....
so i am going to avoid my own folly for a while, stay away from my own vomit. stop pointing out other’s sins so that i can try to hide my own for a while.
and i am not judging icky steamed broccoli. because i would not want that on my permanent record either....