There are two types of people with whom you can surround yourself in baseball: those who know that they don’t know it all and those who don’t know that they don’t know it all. The first group are typically continual students of the game, always willing to listen and learn from someone, never assuming that their prior knowledge and experience is all they will ever need. The second group, well, you can’t tell them anything. They wouldn’t listen if you tried. They might nod along in agreement, or even pretend to pay attention, but they don’t need what you’re saying. They understand it all already.
Just like baseball, there are two types of people in life: the wise and the fools. Wise people always keep their eyes and ears open, ensuring that they see danger in sinful and unwise decisions and people. The fools, on the other hand, don’t even know that their path is a foolish one. Instead, they do what they want, governed by their own feelings and impulses, an ever-changing moral compass. They rarely, if ever, pause to consider any potentially negative future outcome for their decisions. They simply live for the moment.
Proverbs 5:6–“She does not ponder the path of life; her ways are unstable, she does not know it.”
This is a great verse from a great chapter. In Proverbs 5, a wise father gives instruction to his young son about the dangers of life, namely those associated with foolish and ungodly women. Of course, this type of instruction today is seen as outdated and constricting. “Let them find their own path,” some will say. On the contrary, God knows that only fools follow their own paths, unaware and unconcerned about any pitfalls.
Here’s the bottom line: you can live life with you as the compass and you will eventually (whether in this life or the next) discover just how foolish and unstable it was to never ponder God’s path of life for you. Or, you can begin today to submit yourself to his wisdom–which will surely seem foolish to the world–and walk the path of life through faith in Jesus Christ.
I pray that you will choose the latter.
Lord Jesus, I see the two paths before me. I no longer want to live for myself, but I want you to become my life. I admit that I don’t know it all and I confess my sin of self-reliance. Today, I receive your forgiveness through faith and give my all to you. Amen.
