Today’s scripture: Proverbs 8:1-21 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (Robin Herman):
You can’t take it with you!
That’s my excuse for spending money or buying something I don’t need. I can’t take it with me so I might as well spend it! Our scripture implores us to instead work on the thing that we can take with us. Us.
The implication is that all we need in life is wisdom, prudence, and truth — and that those things are ours for the taking. We can learn prudence and acquire intelligence. It’s a beautiful verse written in the third person as if it were wisdom herself who wrote it:
10 Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold;
11 for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.
It’s a verse that puts us all on equal footing. We all have access to everything we need. We spend so much time worrying about what we have and what we don’t have. We worry about what other people think and get so caught up in where we are today that we don’t take time to work on ‘us’.
It makes me want to take a different kind of inventory of myself. What wisdom is out there that I can acquire? If I improve myself I’ll not only be a better person here on earth, but I will also be able to take it with me to heaven.
I think I am studying to be the dog daycare lady in heaven.
There was a time where I remember caring for a litter of six puppies. They came from a shelter in Ravenna, Kentucky. They were dropped off there on a Wednesday, and they were just six weeks old. The shelter determined that they were too young to be left alone for the weekend so they were going to be euthanized Friday afternoon. We had less than 24 hours to figure out how to get them from Kentucky to Indianapolis. It worked out when one of my friends met some nice folks in Cincinnati late Thursday.
Four of the puppies came down with parvo, then the whole group succumbed to a nasty upper respiratory infection. After two-and-a-half weeks in the hospital, they are now all living outside my office at work, doing what puppies do: bark, play, eat, pee, poop, play, pee, nap, repeat.
Every day I reminded myself that I’m glad they were alive and they’re supposed to be. My purpose was be to learn how to manage them. Thank goodness for friends who helped over those few weeks. The puppies were spayed or neutered and adopted.
Whew! That was a lot in a small period of time. I learned a lot, and I’m sure I’ll soon get something else to learn about. Especially about me!
Thought for the day: What will you take with you?
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.