" Leave your impoverished confusion and live!
Walk up the street to a life with meaning!"
Proverbs 9:6 (The Message)
Before I begin, I want to define some of the words in this verse:
Leave: to go away from; to terminate association with
Impoverish: to deprive of strength, richness, or fertility by depleting or draining of something essential
Confused: disoriented with regard to one's sense of time, place, or identity
Live: to attain eternal life; to be thoroughly absorbed by or involved with
Walk: to pursue a course of action or way of life; to be or act in association : continue in union
Street: an environment
Life: the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual
Meaning: significant quality; especially : implication of a hidden or special significance
Significance: the quality of being important
Do you ever feel jealous of other people? If the person you're feeling jealous of isn't a Christian what do they really have that you need to feel jealous of? Sure, they may have lots of stuff. Their houses may be gorgeous. They may have the best cars, a big boat, or expensive jewelry. But, do they have what's truly important in life - salvation? If not, they deserve our pity, not our desire.
The verse I chose to use today tells us that we are to terminate association with a life that is deprived of something essential. A life that isn't sure of it's identity. When we don't have Christ in our hearts, our lives are missing something extremely essential - even if our homes are filled with beautiful things. We can't be sure of our own identities because we don't know the One who identifies us. And we're lacking the true strength that we need to even face our lives!
To live isn't just simply to be alive - to be breathing air. In this verse, Lady Wisdom is inviting us to have eternal life and to be thoroughly absorbed with Wisdom. With God. We can have all the beautiful things in the world, but if we don't have God's Wisdom, what good will it do us? We can't take it with us into the next world! It just becomes junk that our children have to deal with once we're gone. (Not to mention how obsessed we can become with the stuff we have - kids want to play in the house? Oh - they better not or they might break the big-screen TV! And we HAVE a big screen TV, so I'm not just picking on people here. I'm speaking of myself as well. I have to remind myself that it's better for my kids to create memories of playing in the house than of constantly being told not to break anything?)
I digress...
God wants us to be absorbed with Him. He wants us to make Him a part of our existent whole. He doesn't just want us on Sunday mornings. Or at our small groups during the week. He wants to be absorbed into us. Do you get that? Do you truly get that? (I know I don't most of the time!) God wants us to pursue a way of life where we are in union with Him. He wants us to have a life of meaning and significance. All the gold in the world won't give us that! And He doesn't just want us to have a life of significance - He wants us to have special significance! He designed us to have a particular purpose. That purpose does not entail racking up the dough or stuffing our garages full of things. His purpose for each one of us is to know Him and then to tell others about Him, hopefully leading them into their own life of significance in Christ.
Having a nice car, a beautiful house, or the best gadgets doesn't give us significance. Only Christ Jesus can do that. So, if you're a believer of Christ, then know that your life is significant! You have a greater purpose and the relationship you build with Him will give you such immense blessings in Heaven that all this earthly stuff won't even matter.
Now to get myself to believe that when I see a flashy boat skimming across the water while mine sits broken in our garage...
