THINGS (PART 4)

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

There are three or four things that make the earth tremble and are unbearable: A slave who becomes king, a fool who eats too much, a hateful woman who finds a husband, and a slave who takes the place of the woman who owns her.”

Proverbs 30:21-23 (CEV)

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

There are some happenings in life that can have disastrous results. Since I am a sports fan, I’ll use a couple of examples to try and highlight my point:

Let’s say there is a coach who has had some success with a team that is not typically in the spotlight. This catches the attention of others to include the media who begin to hype the coach as being an up and comer. A team who has had consistent success and is full of superstars loses their coach and rather than go for a veteran coach with experience in a pressurized win-or-else relationship, they decide to hire the hyped coach instead. The next season, the team used to succeeding begins to uncharacteristically lose and the fan base turns on the new coach. The players begin to call out the coach in the media as being the main reason they are losing and it becomes very obvious that the coach was not ready for the big stage. After one year, he is fired but many in the sport’s world place the blame on the team hiring the coach more than the coach himself. After all, what did they think was going to happen when they brought someone unqualified into the position?

Another scenario involves a player who has had a checkered past. In college, they had been formally disciplined on several occasions by their coach to include suspensions from games but when they were on the field, they showed superior talent which was considered on the pro level even though they were in college. With all the media coverage of the athlete and their professional potential, the player chooses to forego their final two years of college and enter the draft and despite their history, a team decides to draft them early on and signs them to a big contract. The player makes the team and during their contract period, they end up consistently in the news for all the wrong reasons after multiple incidents off the field.

Eventually, the team releases the player but everyone on the outside looking in wonders why the team drafted the player in the first place. Didn’t the team know what they were getting?

This matter of life circumstances with people leading to unfortunate outcomes is at the center of the fourth devotion centered on the “things” statements of Agur found in Proverbs, Chapter 30. As he continues to speak to Ithiel, he says the following:

There are three or four things that make the earth tremble and are unbearable: A slave who becomes king, a fool who eats too much, a hateful woman who finds a husband, and a slave who takes the place of the woman who owns her.”  Proverbs 30:21-23 (CEV)

Now some of these situations may not apply to today’s world situations but the point is still the same. There are just some things that are not meant to be and we should never assume that every possibility in life is a good fit.

A slave who would become king sounds good on the surface. Actually, it seems like a miraculous turn of events for someone who was considered lowly and without societal status. But the issue here, the problem that makes the matter unbearable is the quick elevation to power without proper experience. Like the coach who was placed in charge of a supreme team, the slave has no experience leading at the highest levels and with so much power at their disposal, power they never imagined they would have, they can be overcome by it and become conceited, self-centered, and abusive to the people, many of which would have mistreated him when he was just a mere slave. That’s the point of the scripture. It’s not saying it’s not fine for a slave to elevate in status. It’s simply saying that rising to a place of stature they are unprepared for will have dire consequence.

The second example had biblical precedence. Going back to the time right after Samuel’s death in 1 Samuel, Chapter 16, we are introduced to a man named Nabal. Now Nabal was no king. Rather, he was just a wealthy man with property and lots of livestock in Carmel. He was married to a woman named Abigail who was described as intelligent and beautiful. This was in deep contrast to Nabal who the scriptures called “surly and mean in his dealings”, something that David found out in a hurry.

For while in the wilderness, David sent ten men to Carmel to ask Nabal for some food and when they did as he ordered, they faced insults and rejection. Nabal refused to give them anything and sent them back to David, an act that angered him so much that he prepared to go with his men and destroy Nabal and his people in Carmel.

Now word had gotten to Abigail via one of Nabal’s servants about what had happened and she knew what was coming. And so she gathered up food and wine, leaving Carmel to intercept David and his men before they arrived. Her actions and apology on behalf of Nabal, who had no knowledge of Abigail’s actions, saved him and the people of Carmel as David withdrew from his intentions.

When Abigail returned, she found her husband drunk and gorging himself at a banquet. She chose to wait until he was sober to tell him about what had happened, how she had saved him, a fool who ate too much. The news, delivered in the morning, was too much for Nabal to take and the scriptures tell us “his heart failed.” Nabal was dead and one is left to think it could have been different had he just shared some of what God had provided with others in need. Perhaps, the word of God is speaking to our hearts about this in our own situations today, about the matter of being charitable when we are able.

Next, Agur mentions the matter of the hateful woman who finds a husband. She is hateful because she has not been able to find a suitor and instead of seeing the matter as God leading her to the right man, she has instead become more and more resentful with every passing day she was not married. The problem here comes when she finally does marry for although she should exchange her bitterness for joy, she chooses to hold contempt and hostility in her heart, not only toward men in general but to her husband as well. Her misery makes her unbearable to the people around her. Maybe you have known someone like this and although the scripture speaks of a woman, the same could equally apply to a man who adopts the same attitudes.

The final “thing” Agur mentions as unbearable is the matter of a slave who assumes the position of the woman who owns her. Go back to the first book of the Bible and consider the story of Sarah and Hagar as an example (Genesis 16).

You’ll recall that Sarah was old and barren. Both she and Abraham worried that there would be no son to carry on Abraham’s name after his death and so they decided to not trust God and figure out their own solution to the problem. That solution involved Abraham sleeping with Sarah’s maidservant, Hagar, who would deliver a son for them. But once Hagar became pregnant, she became despised and loathed by Sarah who mistreated Hagar so badly that she ended up fleeing although she was pregnant. It was only the intervention of an angel of the Lord who met Hagar near a spring in the desert that saved her and her unborn child. The angel told Hagar to go back and submit once again to Sarah which she did and once there, she bore a son who she named Ismael as the angel commanded.

All this could have been avoided had Abraham and Sarah just relied on God to lead them to His will and way. In fact, there isn’t a situation that has been mentioned in this devotion that could not have been averted if people had just sought and then carried out the will and way of the Lord.

This is the takeaway point for all of us today, a point that brings us back to these fundamental verses of Proverbs:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

If we follow this command, we will all go a long way in avoiding disastrous results in the undertakings of life.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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