Proverbs 9:6
"Forsake your folly and live, and proceed in the way of understanding"
Those who are simple and do not know how to handle a particular problem or accomplish a particular goal often hold onto the wrong things or act impulsively because they are unable to understand how things really work.
The words forsake your folly and live is really let go of your selfishness, impulsiveness, and rebelliousness in certain areas and you will find the solution; the goals that you are looking for coming to you. Realize that there is a relationship between what you want and what you must do that right now in your selfishness you are blocking yourself from accomplishing.
Another clear point can be made from these verses. One can never really live when one is operating out of a selfish mindset. It is cooperation, compromise, interaction, togetherness, etc., that will produce the life we really want. People so often want other people to like them and do things for them, but they try and get them to do this by force or seduction rather than voluntarily through wisdom and good will.
One could make an interesting case that biblically it is selfishness (folly) that keeps us from the abundant life God created us to enjoy. What is it that you want? If you are not enjoying the bounty of the Lord, it is selfishness that is keeping you from embracing it – either yours or others.
Forsake your folly and live is a command. Live away from selfishness. It may seem like it is in the direction of what I want to the exclusion of others, but that is really the way of death and separation. What is the type of selfishness that you are most prone to embrace? Pride, Impulsiveness, Anger, Rebellion, Mocking, Lasciviousness, Lying, Gluttony, etc. Forsake that type of folly and learn to live. It is this type of selfishness that clings to you like a wet t-shirt that must be abandoned.
Realize that if you can't find the way of wisdom when facing a decision, it is because you are still clinging to folly and your own brand of selfishness. All of us have ways in which we win and the others around us lose. These are our folly. We must be willing to strike out in new directions and find those actions that produce wins for all. What is the choice or action that the most people in my life win along with my win? What is the pathway which will allow God to be exalted and me to prosper and others to benefit? That is the pathway of wisdom.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz