Read
11The good or bad
that children do
shows what they are like.
12Hearing and seeing
are gifts from the Lord.
13If you sleep all the time,
you will starve;
if you get up and work,
you will have enough food.
14Everyone likes to brag
about getting a bargain.
Reflect
The first of these proverbs reminds us of the intimate connection between character and action. This connection shows up even in the life of a child. If we are to discern this link we need to pay careful attention. We need to be wise in how we hear and what we see. For it is in hearing and seeing that we are able to come to understanding. The great temptation is to fail to listen, fail to look and so fail to understand aright. How easy it is to follow prejudice rather than exercise careful discernment. We need to think here not of blindness or deafness – the inability to see or to hear. Rather the problem lies in our refusal to see, our resistance to listening. We can give in too readily to accepting the way things are, embracing the ways of our particular culture, or our particular prejudices and fail to receive the wisdom that God offers us. These practices are an expression of our refusal to see or hear as we ought.
In verse 13 we are instructed not to love sleep lest we come to poverty – instead we are to open our eyes and we will have plenty of bread. This is a rebuke to the lazy spirit – that spirit that takes no initiative, but instead wraps itself in a blanket of personal self-indulgence and wonders why things have turned out so poorly? Remember in v 8 the King winnows all evil with his eyes. Closed eyes will be less aware of the evil and thus more likely subject to its call. Avoid slothfulness, and exercise instead a discerning eye so that you might understand yourself and the world around you, with eyes wide open and alert to engage the wisdom of Yahweh in the daily routines of life.
Respond
God only wise – help me to understand afresh how ready I am to be selective in what I see and what I hear. Deliver me from my inclination to resist your wisdom and go my own way. Generate within me a wholehearted embrace of righteousness and truth. Give me eyes to see and ears to hear so that I may faithfully answer the call to be conformed to the image of Christ in whose name I pray. Amen.
John Franklin
John Franklin has served as Executive Director of Imago since 1998, a Toronto based initiative in support of Christians in the arts in Canada. He is linked with a large network of Christian artists across Canada and internationally through Lausanne and the World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission. Prior to Imago he was a professor of philosophy at Tyndale College and has taught courses in theology and the arts at Toronto School of Theology. He publishes Imago's quarterly newsletter and an occasional online IMAGO Reflection.