“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but one who hates correction is stupid.” (Proverbs 12:1)
Weʻll continue to see the pattern in Proverbs of one option being far superior than the other. This is better than that. X is far superior to Y. The difficult part is making the choice.
You may have heard it said, “the better is the enemy of the best.” Sometimes we have two good choices but we should pick the best-est one. That can be difficult. But what can be equally difficult is choosing good versus bad when it comes to battling selfishness, self interest, or pride. Proverbs is chock-full of great ideas that we may not want to hear and not want to obey. Sometimes we might read ten great ideas and be so overwhelmed we ignore all of them. Letʻs not be so hasty.
We should choose to follow the instructions that our loving Father has given us. We should love the discipline (the self-discipline to choose the best option or we face the discipline of bad consequences for things weʻve done) because it makes us better and, quite frankly, not listening to wisdom is stupid. We can have knowledge, favor, security, praise, provision, freedom, satisfaction, and more or we can be the butt of jokes, condemned, vulnerable, shame, despised, unproductive, or trapped. It can feel more complicated than that, and the path God has chosen may have some unexpected twists and turns, but we should love the wise path. Just pick a few items, or even just one wise choice that you can use today. If we gain even one more wise practice, we can bring a little more glory to Him and demonstrate that He is perfecting the work He began in us (Phil 1:6).