Category: Wisdom

Let Us Be Like The Wise Woman of Abel

The Wise Woman of Abel
By
Yvonne Sewell

The wise woman of Abel I never knew about until I got grown. We never studied about this wonderful wise woman when I was a child. The reason, probably because it was too violent for the times.
What a sad reason not to study this woman. The story teaches so many lessons for men and women. It teaches the women how to be strong and wise, using logic and methodology for making a rational decision in a time of crises. It teaches the men that if they stop and listen, they may learn that women make sense.
The wise woman of Abel diverted a war, kept the people of God from killing each other over the crime of another. The wise woman of Abel used her logic to protect the innocent and collateral damage from occurring. She used respect, quiet calm to not only command respect but to command it in order to get her point across. She asked the right questions and made Joab stop and think about his decision to destroy the city. The wise woman of Abel knew how to be a negotiator, how to deescalate a volatile situation and kept her wits about her when all others were losing theirs. She was not afraid to stand up and be counted.
In the Lord’s church there are wise women, they do use logic, they use reason and they are strong enough to protect when the time arises. I want to be a wise woman of Abel. If you want to read the story and learn things read 2 Sam 14.

Never Trust Your Tongue

“Never trust your tongue when your heart is bitter. Hush until you heal.” I saw this saying on my facebook feed this morning and it stood out. As humans we have a tendency to let our mouth overload our brain when we are angry. We forget that we should filter our words carefully because once spoken they can never be recalled. We are told in the Bible to be angry but sin not. When we say things in anger or hurt, we sin.
We sing a song that goes “Angry Words let them never from the tongue unbridled slip. May the heart’s best impulse ever check them ere they soil the lip.”
Verse 3 says it all : “ Angry words are lightly spoken, Bitt’rest tho’ts are rashly stirred, Brightest links in life are broken, By a single angry word.”
These words are so true, relationships are destroyed, families are torn apart and self-destruction ensues when we allow angry words to control our hearts.
It takes ten seconds for one to stop, think and re-calibrate their thought process before saying something in anger. It takes ten seconds to remember how we would feel if those words were spoken to us in anger.
Words matter, they can either build up or tear down. They can be a calm in the storm, or they can be the storm. They can be a balm on a troubled soul or they can be hot oil that burns even more.
Never trust your tongue when your heart is bitter. Hush until you heal.

Someone Once Asked…..

 

 

 

The other day as I was scrolling through my social media, I came across a saying that really resonated with me. My mother used to ask me this question but in a different form. The question was “Why do you always insist on taking the hard road?” I was not wise enough to answer her well. However, I think now I can even though she is not with me any longer here on earth. The answer to the question is simply this, “Why do you assume I see two roads.”

As we are on our road of life, sometimes we must take a path that maybe we did not see coming to teach us a lesson that will not only help us, but it might be of benefit to someone else. Sure, that road may be filled with potholes, and danger or even a collision or two. But they are there for a reason.

I know as a child I was not the easiest child to raise. I had my own mind from the time I was a toddler. I always went my own path. I guess I felt like I needed to know things to experience first hand things in order to learn. Did I make bad decisions, did I fall on my face. You bet. Did I disappoint my parents, on more than one occasion. Did I fail myself, you bet I did. Did I disappoint my creator, I have forgotten the times I did. And yet, I learned, sometimes I had to fall in that pothole more than once. I credit my Scot/Irish ancestors with that mindset. But I learned, eventually. For those of you who know the person you see today, I was not always that person. I was shy, timid, felt unworthy, unloved and unaccepted. I would not speak up, nor would I voice an opinion. I felt I had nothing to offer.  I strived to be all things to all people and in the end, I lost me. I felt that my words did not matter, that my worth did not matter and that no matter how much I strived, I would never matter. It took the hard road to show me that I mattered, if to no one else but God. I have been called harsh by some, even my own children in the past. Maybe   am. I know that if I am asked, I will speak up. If I see someone running out into the road and a truck is on a Collison course with them, I will try to pull them back. That is my road.

The “hard road” has taught me how to make my past experiences a guidepost not a hitching post and that is okay.

The point is this. As humans maybe we only see one road, and maybe that is okay. Maybe our journey will help someone else on their journey down their hard road. What we must remember is that our Creator is always by our side. He always walks with us and we always have a way to get out of those potholes.

 

Wisdom

When I was a child, I used to hear the adults talk about how wise so and so was. How anyone could go to them for advice and get it.

As I have grown older and maybe a bit wiser, I find myself being the one who people come to for sage advice. Not that I am filled with that much wisdom, there are too many roads yet to travel to be that wise. However, some of the knowledge I have gleaned on the roads of my life have given me a tad of wisdom. I will never be as wise as some of the adults I respected as that wee child. I will never have as much knowledge as those sagely wise men and women. But I have it filed away to pass along to the next generation.

We tend to forget that words are powerful. We forget that the knowledge we acquire during our journey only becomes wisdom when it is shared. For years I struggled with my faith. I struggled with the knowledge that I would never be good enough to get into God’s Kingdom on my own. I looked around me and saw others who appeared to be so much better than me.

A very wise woman told me that none of us are good enough. We enter the Kingdom by the grace of God. We all are fallible, we all struggle, and we all fail. However, if we walk the path, hold on to our faith and understand that God is in complete control, that he understands the big picture and he knows use better than we know ourselves, then we can be assured of the destination.

As human beings we should never stop gaining knowledge to pass on as wisdom. Even a child has a bit of wisdom in their minds, we just have to take the time to listen.

There is always someone who needs what we can offer. There is always someone who needs our particular knowledge to help them on their journey.

The greatest gift besides the Good News we can give others is the wisdom of God’s grace. The wisdom that his love covers us like a warm blanket. The wisdom that we are secure in the knowledge of his grace and that when we step off the path we can return. We can be embraced, and we can see the destination ahead.

old book