Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise. – Proverbs 15:31

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 29, 2016): Proverbs 15

There is a lot of advice out there. Some of it is pretty good, other pieces of information deserve to be ignored. And sometimes wading through the advice is simply a daunting task. But our reality is that it is a job that needs to be done. It is easy to live your life on the advice that feels good on your ears. (I am convinced that this is Donald Trump’s only hope in the coming election. Very little of what he says makes much logical sense, but all of what he says has the potential to feel good on our ears and confirm our existing stereotypes, stereotypes that need to be challenged and not affirmed). But if you do wade through the ocean and get that piece of advice that deep down you know is right, what then?

If you are like most of us, you will ignore it. It is not that we don’t know what to do, that somehow the right path has mysteriously eluded us. We are aware, but it is too hard to move from knowing to doing. So the advice stays on the shelf. We know, but we make excuses. We know, but we refuse to make the necessary sacrifices. And then time passes, and we get introspective and admit that things would have looked so much different if we had only heeded that piece of advice. And then we tell ourselves that old familiar lie – now it is too late.

If I am honest, I have been telling myself that lie in certain areas of my life for years now. It is too late. I sound like Jon Cryer on “Two and Half Men,” standing in the bookstore lamenting all of the classics that have been left unread and declaring that it is too late now to start reading – and leaving the store without buying a book. I am the woman that has not saved up for retirement and now declares that she will have to work until the day she dies – and then spends her disposable money on the wants of her life. I am the one who has left his life-giving work undone while I fritter my time away on things that don’t matter – and never pick up the pen to write that book, or that song, or whatever it is that deep down my soul begs to do.

Too late is a lie that separates us from the wise. Too late keeps us from following the advice that needs to be developed in our lives. Too late will ultimately kill us, emotionally and physically. The author of Proverbs says that “whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise.” They will be at home with the wise because they never allowed “too late” to take root in their lives.

It is not too late to start to follow the solid advice that you have been avoiding. And if you become among the few who are brave enough to heed that life-giving correction, you too will find your home among the wise.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Proverbs 16