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Scheduled Reading: Jeremiah 45:1-47:7; Psalm 119:126-132; Proverbs 27:2-4; 1 Timothy 5:3-25


Selected Passage: Proverbs 27:3

Dude, That's Heavy.

I can remember filling sand bags and placing them around my home to prepare for a forecast flood a few years back. We lived in a flood-way. This is different than a flood zone or a low-lying area prone to street flooding. A flood-way is the path of the moving flood water as it rises and drains away! My young son and I filled sand bags by hand at the local community sand pile provided for this purpose. We then loaded them up in the back of my pick up truck, hauled them to the house, and began to strategically stack them around areas we feared water would enter our house. The work was arduous. In fact, after the storm passed and the threat subsided, we stacked those sand bags behind our fence. The reason was so that we would at least not have to fill and haul them again when next needed.

Have you ever been taunted by idiots? If you lived through Jr. High School, then most definitely. Many workplaces have similar traits. The proverb compares the provocation of a foolish person to the heaviness of sand and stone. Hauling that sand was exhausting work. The labor of it was wearisome. Even as an adult, I have endured Jr. High-like work environments, where only adults were present. Working & ministering in such an environment was indeed wearisome labor. But we all do what we must.

The author of that Proverb doesn't offer any advice on how to deal with it. He just acknowledged the problem. At least we can take comfort in knowing that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger and that God can work even that out for His glory and our good. That alone makes it worth enduring to the end.

Oh, what's that you ask? Did my house flood? No. No, the forecast flood waters were greatly exaggerated that day. The effort didn't go to waste though. God is glorified today with this illustration, my son and I bonded over the project, and we had a waiting supply of sandbags, just in case.

See? God if faithful... in everything.