Hey, can you guess True or False; Whether people with red hair consistently need more lidocaine at the dentist office for pain control? More insights tomorrow.
Monday 4/24
Prov. 30:10 "Do not malign a servant to his master, Lest he curse you, and you be found guilty."
Well, you may think this a strange warning.
Now, lets just stop and study just what is the deeper insight.
Let's think about this one in its potential meaning. A wealthy person visits his distant neighboring friend. While eating, resting, drinking, the neighboring friends servant accidently spills food or drink on the guest. The guest being inconvenienced & discomforted lashes out in anger at the servant. "You foolish man, how could you spill this on me, you were just being careless."
Now, the guest can't know the motivation, or the level of faithfulness of this servant, toward the neighboring friend, he only knows that he is angered by him for the moment. The servant may be the most loyal, faithful, caregiver in the whole household. However, this friend see's only this one failure, and casts doubt on him from only one mistake.
The master may have witnessed the character of the servant for many years, but the guest only witnesses one lone incident. The guest in his anger, says, you should punish & remove him from your household, he doesn't deserve you.
This warning is to the guest; that rather than jumping to conclusions and casting doubt on the servant, he should place greater trust for his character from the friend who has the opportunity to know him on a deeper level.
He may have served his master his whole life, and may have proven over & over for many years his loyalty, and concern for his master. This guest can only know this one instance, so he should withhold his judgement.
Should the guest speak out of his limited judgement, he may find himself estranged from his friend, and more importantly at a loss of the friends future company. I don't know if this instance makes sense to you?
To hopefully bring this down to you;
Here is a practical insight from my life. Sometime ago, I visited my father, who was experiencing mental failure, he was at odds with trying to speak what he was thinking.
Now, for me this hadn't sunk in yet, that this was the early stages of Alzheimer's. Dad was suddenly, quiet, sullen, due to his incapacity, I was unfortunately unaware of this. When alone, I asked my brother who lived in the same town, what was wrong, why was dad so quiet, reserved, etc. He explained to me just what was happening in dad's mental state.
Suddenly, everything made sense, for the last year, I had noticed a slowing of our conversations, and a tension in getting off the phone, as well as, a frustration in dad finding the right words in our conversations.
Now, my dad was always adept at flowing conversations. We would easily talk on the phone for several hours without even a pause. So this was totally a major change in behavior.
After our conversation, my brother and I, instantly my mind was illuminated, our fellowship together, with my dad & I, by bringing the bar down to reasonable expectations our time together fell into the loving patterns of the past.
Slowing down in topic jumping, the length of conversations, shortening of times of just being together, allowing for mental rest, between conversations. All of these patterns made our times together so much more relaxed & enjoyable.
Now lets just jump back to our warning, in light of this, we can see how the instruction is laid out.
Don't think that you have the ability to pass judgement on the competency, or the reliability of others, in one instant over a lifetime of exposure to others. If we are too quick to pass judgement on others we don't know, then we will, surely lose. In the most extreme extent, we will lose our friendships with those that we value most.
So be careful in your snap judgements on others that you don't know yet. Take your time in gaining impressions of others intentions & motives. Wisdom is being slow to speak, and fast to seek understanding.
So Go With God for He knows ALL, the past, present, and yes, even the future. We can never go wrong when we slow our pace & rest on His unerring knowledge. His insights have no limits. Rest in Him.
Amen