Today's Scripture Reading (December 20, 2025): Proverbs 8
Wisdom is
always true. It can't be anything else if it starts with God.
A story is
told about a man who had a donkey to help him transport goods for his business.
The donkey was loyal, but he was also lazy. The man's donkey often found ways
to cut corners at work, sometimes causing his master's business significant losses.
One day, the
donkey was tasked to carry sacks of salt on his back to town. One of the paths
along the way required the donkey to cross a river. As they were crossing the
river, the donkey slipped on a rock and fell into the water. His master
immediately helped him up, but to the donkey's great surprise, the load on his
back suddenly felt lighter. The water had washed away some of the salt inside
the sacks.
For the next
few days, the donkey would "slip" and fall into the water. The
donkey's master, who was not a stupid man, noticed that his donkey seemed to be
falling intentionally. The donkey's behavior frustrated the master because the
salt he was supposed to sell kept getting damaged. So, the master decided to
teach the donkey a lesson to prevent this loss of salt from happening
again.
On their next
trip, he filled the sacks with cotton. Not knowing there had been a change in
cargo, the donkey again fell into the water. However, this time the cotton
absorbed some of the water, making the sacks much heavier instead of lighter. The
packs on the donkey's back grew so heavy that the pack animal could not get up
at all!
His master
then came to help him, and from there, the donkey learned his lesson.
Maybe the
moral of this story is that there is a way that might seem like the truth to
us, but it isn't. Psychiatrist Scott Alexander wrote, "All good is hard. All
evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity [are] easy. Stay away
from easy" (Scott Alexander). Wisdom keeps us from the
easy way, and it is more valuable than gold or silver, because wisdom not only
keeps us in the right place now, but it keeps us right in the future.
I have called
myself a reluctant pacifist. I admit that sometimes, at least to my
understanding, war seems to be necessary. However, wisdom says that wars should
never be fought because wisdom starts with God and the idea of loving God with
our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. Wisdom
begins with "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Do
these things, and your worries will shrink. Do these things, and maybe the
peace that we speak about at Christmas can be a real thing all year long.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading:
Proverbs 9
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