It is clear, human beings need instruction. We need boundaries.  We need discipline and reproof.  Yet, fools despise wisdom and instruction.  Apart from God’s grace, we are arrogant, self-referential and too often buy into the “autonomy speak” that our flesh, the world, and the devil whispers~ sometimes screams~ into our ears.   Proverbs teaches us that being truly human looks like fearing the Lord. That is, acknowledging our creaturely status and our utter dependence in the Creator, who alone grants wisdom, insight- words of life!

The Bible teaches that we human beings are prone to wander from the God who created us.  By nature we are truth suppressors. We are given to pursuing what is wrong and harmful; we willfully disobey and take steps towards evil.  We are dead people who actively seek death, foolishly convinced our pursuits are the way to life.  We are naive and think we can rise above sin, arrogantly saying “I’d never do that”, not recognizing the traps we set up for ourselves.  Just think:  No one ever sets out to be a drug addict. But, before long, the thing intended to deliver happiness becomes what defines and controls him.  This is true of anything in life on which we hang our happiness– even those good things that eventually take first place ~the place of God ~in our lives.

Not only do we wander from what is right and good but we tempt others to wander with us. We eat the forbidden fruit and expect others to do so too. This speaks to our desire for intimacy, relationship and partnership but, like all else tragically affected by the fall, in our unredeemed state, we often partner to do evil rather than partnering to do good.  Just think: Isn’t it so much more fun to get into mischief with your buddies?  Why are “gangs” appealing at all?   Yes, we long for partnership, indeed created for it, but boy has the fall messed us up!

Proverbs teaches us that among the chief ways we wander are through lustful desires and evil speech.  Chapters one through ten highlight these as primary ways our hearts reveal rebellion, coldness and indifference to the things of God.   We are not satisfied with what is rightfully ours and we use our bodies and tongues to steal, to fulfill our lustful desires, to cheat, lie, deceive and destroy each other.   Just think: Lust and slander are everywhere present …can’t read a magazine, watch TV, or scroll through social media without encountering all manner of them.  Truth be told, can’t spend too much scrolling through our own hearts without realizing the problem is not just out there but “in here.”

It is clear, human beings need instruction. We need boundaries.  We need discipline and reproof.  Yet, fools despise wisdom and instruction.  Apart from God’s grace, we are arrogant, self-referential and too often buy into the “autonomy speak” that our flesh, the world, and the devil whispers~ sometimes screams~ into our ears.   Proverbs teaches us that being truly human looks like fearing the Lord. That is, acknowledging our creaturely status and our utter dependence in the Creator, who alone grants wisdom, insight- words of life!  The wise person hears instruction and delights in obeying, and recognizes that the Father disciplines those he loves.   Just think:  One of my favorite illustrations about living within appropriate boundaries as creatures of God is Jay Adam’s description of a train on its tracks. Here’s my paraphrase: When is a train more free to be a train? When it stays on the tracks for which it was designed, or when it veers off the tracks, perhaps initially being “free and unconstrained” but ultimately heading to its own peril and the peril of all in its path?  Clearly, we are way more complex and sophisticated than trains, but we are still creatures who have been given a path and to the extent we follow the path, depending constantly on God’s grace, we will be wise and fruitful.  To the extent we don’t we are a train wreck in the making.

But God, in his mercy, has not left us in our foolishness and rebellion!   He pursues his people as a father pursues the son he loves.  He pleads for us to listen.  In his grace, He has enabled us to hear and delight in the Word, to treasure the knowledge of God, to desire to be under his rule.  He has done so by uniting believers to Wisdom himself- Christ “in whom are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Col 2:3)   Christ is the only one righteous, the only one who has unmarred insight, who reigns in wisdom before and during and after the creation of the world.  He is the living Word, the essence of wisdom. Only in him do we have life.  Apart from him we wander towards death.   Just think: No other response seems appropriate but worship:  Hallelujah, what a Savior!

CB Campano is a member of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Lakeland, Fla., where she serves as its Congregational Care Coordinator. This article first appeared on her blog and is used with permission.