Thought for Monday 10October

 Proverbs 19:20-21 (New International Version)

20.Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise. 21.Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

I find it more of a challenge writing a ‘thought’ when the daily scripture presented comes from the Old Testament book of Proverbs.  In most other parts of the bible, the one or two verses presented form part of a story where you can read what comes before and after the verses to get some sort of context or background.  It has been described as a collection of collections of wise sayings with Chapter 19 as well as other chapters being attributed to Solomon and his God-given wisdom.

Verse 20 wisely tells us to listen to advice and accept discipline.  Personally, I was brought up in a time when discipline could occasionally involve elements of violence.  It was a time when a parent would often advise their child in the following manner: ‘if you repeat that behaviour/action/language etc., you’ll be getting a sore backside!’  It was not unknown for parents to ‘deliver’ on this threat.  Today, the previous variety of discipline would generally be frowned upon with alternative methods being deployed such as confiscating a young person’s mobile phone or gaming console for a time or maybe ‘grounding’ them.  Society throughout history has recognised the need for discipline.

Verse 21 tells us that we all have plans, but life tells us that many of our plans will not come to fruition.  Within our Church at present there is an ongoing process under a banner of ‘Mission Planning’ which is not going particularly smoothly for a whole variety of reasons.  We see our children planning career paths which often don’t have the desired outcome.  Most of us will plan holidays and sometimes, the chosen resort isn’t quite the same as it looked in the brochure.

We can learn from both these verses that in our case, we can get it wrong.  We often hear cases when someone has spent years in prison for it to be discovered that they have been wrongly convicted.  The worst time I ever received ‘the belt’ from a teacher was when a prefect reported me for not walking ‘in single file on the left’ in a school corridor.  My father was nearly going to the school to complain about the marks that had been left on both my wrists.  On reflection, maybe discipline was required but did the punishment really fit the crime?  In the planning process within the Church, much of the failure of the initial consultation period has been attributed to unrealistic timescales and the aggressive or ‘unecclesiastical’ responses to the manner in which the initial consultations were undertaken.

With our God, we may be disciplined but we can be sure it was deserved, and the nature of the discipline will be proportionate to what we got wrong.  We also know that there is no instance of God’s plans so far that have never come to pass so there is no reason to doubt that Jesus will, most certainly return some day and anything we do in relation to discipline and planning should have that thought behind it.

 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, help us look to you and include you in all aspects of our lives.  If we are in a position where we have to discipline others, help us to be sure that we are in full possession of the facts and not base our decisions on supposition or baseless reasons.  When we are planning anything in our lives, remind us to pray to you for guidance and open our hearts and minds when you try to guide us.  Finally Lord, please send your Holy Spirit to be with all involved in the planning exercise within our Church so you are at the heart of all decisions reached. Amen