A Manual for Life IV

Meditation on Proverbs 10-11
These are Proverbs of Solomon, often referred to as the Teacher and considered to be a man of great wisdom. The story goes that he had a Divine encounter and told to ask for anything he wanted. He chose great wisdom over wealth and was blessed with both. These are practical and common sense statements that are easy to understand and grab hold of. 

Proverbs 10

• Make your parents proud. Dont be stupid. Seek wisdom. 
• Honesty is paramount. Getting stuff based on a lie will never satisfy. 
• Honesty will make you full. Lies eventually just starve you on their emptiness. 
• A diligent life has rewards. Laziness and sloth make you poor. 
• Hard work when you have the opportunity is wise. Procrastination or taking a day off when it’s harvest time is just dumb.
• An honest life is a blessed life of good reputation. Those who can’t control their mouth end up in darkness and rot. 
• One who is wise can handle obeying directions. Conversely, a foolish one can’t handle being told what to do. 
• Honesty is freedom to walk in confidence. A crooked path ends in ruin. 
• Someone with shifty eyes is usually suspect. A confident, open conversation brings clarity. 
• Wisdom brings speech that is deep and life-giving. The opposite yields destruction. 
• Fights begin in bitterness and anger, but love is like a warm blanket of peace, forgiving offense. 
• Wisdom takes a long view – the big picture; someone who is short-sighted needs to focus and open their eyes. 
• If you are wise, you will seek knowledge, for it is worth seeking.
• Someone who thinks they know everything usually get ignored.
• If you are rich, your wealth is like a fortress. If you are poor, you have no where to go. 
• Wise people get good wages that bring life. Foolish people spend their money as fast as they can on meaningless things. 
• Discipline is the path that leads to life. If you ignore it, you will quickly wander off into the briars and get lost.
• People who lie actually store up anger and hatred and they spread it around with their negative words. 
• Be smart with your speech. Don’t talk too much. 
• Some people just run off at the mouth with a bunch of meaningless noise, but a good word from a wise person is worth waiting for. 
• Many people who talk and talk feel empty and hollow, but listening to a wise person gives you a wealth of knowledge and encouragement. 
• Divine blessing brings richness and really, it’s pretty hard to improve on that!
• Foolish people and shenanigans go hand in hand, but a sensible person searches for wisdom. 
• Hope is a powerful ally of the wise, but the foolish person deals with nightmares and darkness. 
• After the storm, people who are wise and good remain rooted to a firm foundation. Those who aren’t are destroyed. 
• Laziness, especially in employees, is irritating — like getting smoke in your eyes or a bitter taste in the mouth. 
• Divine awareness is enlightening and opens your mind. A life seeking temporal things is small. 
• Hope is worth celebrating. Bad ambitions are like a car crash — tragic. 
• Integrity is a hallmark of a good life. Shady lives eventually get exposed. 
• Solid people stay put. They are steady and loyal. Those who are flighty are here, there and everywhere. 
• The mouth of a good person gives wise advice. Don’t pay attention to the know it all. 
• Life vs. death is the difference between a wise and foolish person’s speech.
• Honesty is cherished. Cheating, especially in business, is not cool. 

Proverbs 11

• Folks with their noses in the air usually end up tripping. Sensible and straightforward people stay steady. 
• People who are full of integrity stay on the straight road. Thieves end up in ruin. 
• When life goes to hell, it doesn’t matter how much money you have. But if you are grounded and steady, it’s a lot easier to weather the storm.
• Honesty makes for a good road trip. Deception usually means a tough life. 
• Honesty is like a safety net, but treachery is a trap. 
• For someone without character, when their time is up, that’s it.
• Good people run from trouble, Bad people run to it. 
• Idle chatter usually brings chaos and destroys relationships but common sense of a grounded person is well appreciated.
• A person of wisdom and humility is honored when they die, but a person who lived a life pursuing evil is reviled. 
• Those who pursue right-living bring prosperity to their town; gossip and slander will quickly tear a town apart. 
• Discretion and sensibility is wise. Slander is foolish. 
• Gossipers can’t be trusted. A trustworthy friend can hold confidence. 
• When you have a bad map, you will quickly get lost. It’s not a bad idea to have wise counsel around you when you have decisions to make.
• Wisdom says, don’t sign your name as a co-signer to someone’s loan. It will come back and bite you.
• Graciousness earns respect. Violence is ruthless and rough. 
• Kindness to others is also reward to you. Cruelty destroys both them and you. 
• Getting rich by doing things you shouldn’t is fleeting. Honest work has lasting benefits. 
• Those who seek goodness find life. Those who chase evil find death.
• Integrity is honored. Deception is despised.
• Eventually evil people get what’s coming to them. There are benefits for staying on the path of goodness. 
• You’ve heard the saying, “like a jewel in a pig’s nose.” That’s what’s it’s like to lack discretion. 
• Good people are rewarded with good things. Bad people end up frustrated and empty. 
• The tighter you hold stuff, the smaller your world. The more you give, the bigger your world grows.
• If you bless others, you will be blessed! It’s refreshing, like a cold drink on a hot day. 
• Those who drive a hard bargain are not thought well of. But when you are fair and honest with people, they will remember that.
• Favor is found in those seeking goodness. But if you seek evil, you will find it and it will infect you. 
• If you put your faith in temporal things, money, stuff… you’ll ultimately end up losing. Seeking the Divine is like a beautiful tree – alive! 
• People who are abusive to their families end up with nothing — it’s a foolish way to live. 
• The seeds of goodness that you plant become a tree of life. 
• Bad people don’t have a lot of hope, but those seeking goodness are rewarded with rich lives.