Proverbs Experiment: Day Seventeen

Proverbs Chapter Seventeen:

Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the Lord tests the heart. (vs. 3)

I do feel that I'm going through a testing time right now. I love the concept that just as fire brings out the impurities of silver and of gold when they are molten, so God brings out the impurities in our lives when "the heat is on." I'm reading a book by Henry Cloud called "Changes That Heal" - a book that I've had for a long time but have never read. I was going through a bunch of boxes in my closet, and a couple of books stood out to me - this one and another one called "Healing Damaged Emotions."

I think there is some stuff in my life - past and present - that I haven't really gotten around to deal with. Hurts, guilt, other stuff that needs to be dealt with before I can grow. Perhaps this is one of the reason why my life is at a standstill - so I can work through some of these issues and then grow enough to not let them affect me.

In Changes That Heal, Cloud talks about time and how we want our lives to change right away. The problem is that real life doesn't work that way. I thought this was interesting from that book:

This passage illustrates an important truth about the growth process. It cannot be willed. It can only be enhanced by adding grace, truth, and time, and then God produces the growth. If we are depressed, for example, it does not good to try to be "undepressed." It does help, however, to cultivate the soil of our soul with the nutrients of grace, truth, and time. Only then will be transformed to greater and greater stages of joy.

Going through a testing, fiery time is not fun - but it helps purify us and helps us deal with our impurities.

Those who mock the poor insult their Maker; those who rejoice at the misfortune of others will be punished. (vs. 5)

I wish that the oppressors of the last several years, in places like Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, and now Zimbabwe, could have read this verse and taken it to heart before doing the stuff they have done. Of course, some of these oppressors were supposed Christians who probably had read the book of Proverbs sometime in their lives. In Rwanda, Hutu priests hacked their Tutsi neighbors to death with machetes. Tutsis fled to churches, where they were burned alive.

There is a DVD out that I need to watch called "On Our Watch." This is the description of the DVD:

The world said "Never Again!" after the Holocaust and yet FRONTLINE asks why the genocide in Darfur was allowed. Meticulously chronicled, endlessly debated at the UN, and allowed to proceed unabated for years, more than 200,000 killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes. As governments failed to act, private citizens and celebrities protest the carnage. FRONTLINE profiles the activists, including actress Mia Farrow, to chronicle devastation.

Disregarding another's faults preserves love; telling about them separates close friends. (vs. 9)

Good advice, don't you think? In a healthy marriage, we should disregard the other person's faults because we know our faults as well and we know they disregard ours. And yet still love us.

A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need. (vs. 17)

One of the things that I want to change about myself (which I know will take time, is that I want to be a better friend to my friends. I was thinking about this the other day when I was at a friend's house. This person volunteered on my worship team sacrificially and gave his time to help me out whenever he could. And yet I have the opportunity now to do the same for him and yet I find myself making excuses. He is my friend, and I need to help when I can. It's what true friends do.

The other part about this verse is that sometimes I don't let my friends help me in my time of need. For example, this past year I moved to Colorado and I had some stuff I needed to unload from my car to the house I was staying, and one of my friends asked me if I needed help. I could have used the help, I was tired from the drive and kind of sick. But I downplayed everything and told him I would be fine. I gave up a great opportunity for my friend to help me, because that's what friends do, because I didn't want to inconvenience him. Which is another fault of mine - not asking for help because I don't want to inconvenience someone. Sigh...another thing to work on.