I received an email from a church person that left me speechless. Initially. He said I was arrogant in forcing crossroads into his lounge and that he had never asked for it.

I was upset, but when I saw their ministry’s motto was something like, “we care and make a difference”, I lost it. By return email I told him it was my pleasure to remove him from the mailing list, but that I couldn’t understand how the judgement of my arrogance was aligned to their motto. And in the postscript, I said that he was grumpy.

That was a mistake.

A friend of mine had a good life, he probably had everything he ever wanted. As my mom used to say, eminent people in society. But then things started going wrong and eventually his marriage broke up and they lost everything. I recently saw her and soon after that, I saw him – I was shocked, both looked bad, very bad.

I was sorry for them, and especially the children. Because there are no winners here, only bad losers. And then it struck me: The Bible says that when two people marry, they become one.

In other words, before you get married, you are a half, and in marriage, two halves become one. But when you divorce, you don’t go back to being a half. No, you’re less than half. Maybe you sit at the quarter mark, but the reasons to leave one another grow larger so soon that you have sufficient justification for it.

It was a mistake.

Each of us can write down our list here.

I keep wondering why the circumstances we’re in help us to take the wrong decisions. And, as usual, the answer to that comes from the Bible. ⁶ Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives.

Yes, discipline is the answer. If I had dealt with the difficult spiritual issues wisely, in a disciplined way, the result would not have been a quick email war. If my friend and his wife had put a heap of marriage discipline and wisdom on the table, there wouldn’t have been quarter-size people walking around. No, it would have been winners only.

When Solomon could have chosen anything in the world from terribly rich to all the prestige in the world, he chose wisdom. That was wise, wasn’t it?

Barnes (e-sword) divides the meaning of wisdom in understandable subsections:

Wisdom encourages you to

• • act carefully and strategically
  • be in control of your passion and appetite
  • resist temptation
  • be controlled by faith
  • restrain your thoughts
  • act calmly

We could summarise these few lines with: Think before you do and say. Then we’ll make less mistakes.

Scripture
Titus 2:6-8

Reflection
Where do you make mistakes?
How does your wisdom flow?
What do you have to do differently in future?

Prayer
Lord, I’m quick out of the starting blocks, more often than not going in the wrong direction. I mess up so often, damaging your image. I really don’t want to do that. Like Paul I can truly confess that what I want to do, I don’t do, and what I don’t want to do, I do. Please help me with this fault in me. Amen.