Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. – Proverbs 2:11

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 26, 2013): Proverbs 2

We live in a world that is full of ideas. It is one of the great things about being alive. And I love to be around idea people. I just love to listen to their ideas. In fact, one of the things that bothers me is the suggestion that we have to do something this way because it has always been done that way. I have sat through meetings where an idea has been presented and the people I am meeting with are in the process of tearing apart the idea on the basis that we have never done it that way before. And I want to scream, there are a million ways that we could do something, and some of them are really good – maybe even better than the way we have always done it.

But, admittedly, some ideas are not better. And that is the challenge. So I believe that all ideas have a right to be spoken – I want to hear them. But not all ideas will work. Success exists in the space where we understand that simple fact. An idea might not work because there is something wrong in the idea itself - or it might not work because the timing of the idea is wrong. But if we want to be successful, that is something that we need to comprehend.

The author of Proverbs says that “discretion will protect you” and then the idea is repeated again – “understanding will guard you.” And the thought is that we need to learn to weigh our ideas. But I am also a big believer in experimentation. I think that ideas that might have a chance to work should at least be tried. If they don’t work, great, don’t do it again. On some level I believe that every organizational should be experimental. But sometimes some of the ideas that make no sense are the ones that will revolutionize our lives. And all of this is part of understanding and discretion.

I love the definition of insanity which simply describes the state of being insane as doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result. And according to that definition, a lot of us are insane. But maybe that is only part of the definition. Maybe another part of the definition is that insanity is not trying new things; it is the act of becoming so set in our ways that new ideas begin to scares us. Some of us would even be tempted to call that discretion. But the reality is that discretion requires understanding. Rejecting an idea simply because it is new is not discretion, it is stupidity. And we are not placed in our circles of influence so that we can be stupid.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Proverbs 3