IBS 65 - PROVERBS 18:2

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A fool has no delight in understanding, But in expressing his own heart.
Proverbs 18:2



As I go through Proverbs, one of the biggest things that has hit me is how often I am the fool. I think that as a Christian, or as a person, I would like to think that I am the wise man ( woman ) that is paired in contrast. But really so very often I am the fool. And this verse just hit me. Hard. Looking at conflict, which is at times inevitable. What do I seek to do? I can say that looking back a lot of the time I have sought to express my opinion. My heart. How it is that the situation has affected me, how it is that I feel. What I think should have been done, or should be done, or how I think it was done wrong. I have started to learn, what it means to understand. Considering team Costa Rica is a two person team conflict at times feels awkward. Now praise the Lord He has faithfully been teaching both of us how conflict is good, and we can use disagreements to glorify God in the way we deal with them. We must seek to understand. Seek to understand the other, seek to understand the heart of the other. It’s easy to get stuck on how we feel, and how we think we’re right. We should have the right to feel this way, or act this way, or say these things. Be we don’t. We have no right. We are known by our love. That is how Jesus said we would be known. By our love for each other. Therefore walking in love, we must seek to understand before we are understood. Because when we are slow to speak, and slow to anger, and quick to listen, we are able to remember our fight isn’t against each other. But against powers and principalities. We don’t tear into one another wanting our opinions to be known, but we speak and listen in a desire to understand and love the other. All by His grace, and in that we share a testimony of the great love that God has for us. 

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