The Lab of Life

Commit yourself to instruction; listen carefully to words of knowledge. My child, listen and be wise:
Keep your heart on the right course. (Proverbs 23:12, 19)

Commit yourself to instruction. The word 'commit' carries the meaning of 'binding yourself' to a specific course of action. The course of action God asks for us to 'bind ourselves' to is the study of his Word. Why? It will keep our heart on the right course! There we find wisdom in our daily choices, but we also see what it means to choose unwisely. As I began to get into God's Word as a teenager, I was surprised that God put the stories about 'wrong choices' people made right along with the ones about those who made better ones. It kind of took me by surprise to see some of the 'wrong choices' I was making already having been made by others! Truly, as God's Word reminds us, there is nothing new under the sun.

Listen and be wise. Our heart is 'kept' when we listen and then use the instruction. Wise people don't just hear, they act upon what they have been taught. I remember being in science classes and learning about the earth's crust, how volcanos were formed, and other important aspects of 'earth science'. The most memorable science classes were those with a 'lab' associated with them. Why? I could 'learn' by 'seeing'. I got to put into practice what I was being taught. Whether it was dissecting an eyeball from a sheep or putting various chemical compounds together to see their reaction, I 'put into practice' what I had been learning from the book. God isn't just giving us his Word to read - he is giving it to us to put into practice in this 'lab of life'.

What are you 'binding yourself' to in life? There are all kinds of 'wisdom' available to us today. We could be looking intently at the newsreels and expecting to learn everything we need to know from them. The 'truth' isn't always reported, though. We could continually scour the latest Wall Street reports, but we can quickly get ourselves too focused on our security being found in what we invest rather than in the one who provides our increase. The more we get into his Word, the more he asks for us to incorporate what we read into our lives. If you don't want to live by his standards - read something else. If you want to see real life change - get into his Word and let it get into you. Committing to his instruction is the wisest choice. Just sayin!