Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

In the Lord’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water
    that he channels toward all who please him.
A person may think their own ways are right,
    but the Lord weighs the heart.
To do what is right and just
    is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.
Haughty eyes and a proud heart—
    the unplowed field of the wicked—produce sin.
The plans of the diligent lead to profit
    as surely as haste leads to poverty.
A fortune made by a lying tongue
    is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare.
The violence of the wicked will drag them away,
    for they refuse to do what is right.
The way of the guilty is devious,
    but the conduct of the innocent is upright.

• Proverbs 21:1-8

Proverbs 21:1 ”Your heart is a fertile greenhouse ready to produce good fruit. Your mind is the doorway to your heart-the strategic place where you determine which seeds are sown and which seeds are discarded. The Holy Spirit is ready to help you manage and filter the thoughts that try to enter. He can help you guard your heart.
“He stands with you on the threshold. A thought approaches, a questionable thought. Do you throw open the door and let it enter? Of course not. You ‘capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ’ (2 Corinthians 10:5). You don‘t leave the door unguarded. You stand equipped with handcuffs and leg irons, ready to capture any thought not fit to enter.”

• Max Lucado, Just Like Jesus

The Message

The prepositional phrase at the beginning of this chapter makes all the difference, in the Lord’s hand.  If we go by our own understanding, we can often screw up.  Being an agrarian society, Solomon uses the metaphor of water for the wisdom that comes from a king who looks to the Lord for guidance.  Then, the people that please the king will be those who God guides the king to have favor with.

The second proverb in this chapter to relate to the first, but it can stand alone also.  It is the corollary.  If the king, or anyone, thinks his own thoughts to be golden, he can easily stray, but God judges the heart and from a heart that loves God and his fellow man, the actionable thoughts will be for the benefit of those around the person with a good heart.

Proverbs 21:3 is basically what Samuel asked Saul in 1 Samuel 15.  Saul was impatient.  He offered a sacrifice, but Samuel was supposed to have offered the sacrifice.  Thus, Saul lost his kingdom at that point, although David did not ascend to the throne until after Saul’s death.  It was better to wait, have patience, and obey God than a timetable that was based on what Saul wanted.  Even if Saul had a military advantage over his foe at just that moment, God would favor obedience over a sacrifice that Saul was not authorized to give.  But what we can learn from this is patience, of course, but going to God and determining our best course of action rather than throwing a few extra dollars into the offering plate for God to see that our idea was a good one.  Oh?  That wasn’t your reason for the offering?  Remember, God knows your heart.  When our heart is right with God, we will make that offering anyway, but for the right reasons.

I have been guilty of having a proud heart, but that was some time ago that I acted upon it, and each time I write these words of wisdom, or many times, I think of how I need to learn from this and forgive myself for past failures.  If we cannot humble ourselves before God, it means we have a poor opinion about God.  For if we see God as He is, we cannot measure up in any measuring unit, unless that would be stupidity and arrogance and sinfulness.  God is none of those.  We should be proud of accomplishments, but when I write something that moves me to tears, I immediately think that God had taken over for a moment for that to happen.  To be proud is not wickedness, not really, but it provides us with blindness to the door to our soul that pride must have, and all sorts of evil and wickedness can go through that open door.  We must close the door by humbling ourselves and then set a watchman to guard the door.

There was a wise businessman who wrote that there are three things that we want in everything, but we can only have two of them.  It is our choice which two.  Those things were: Quality, On Time, and Low Cost.  I had a boss who wrote those terms on a piece of paper and framed it.  At the bottom, he wrote: I demand all three.  Was he insane?  Most of us felt that he was, but he had little moral fiber, if any.  He was ruthless with his employees and his customers.  And when he felt he might be the next person fired, he started stealing from the company in advance.  Maybe he wasn’t insane after all, just evil.

But to explain why you cannot have all three, to not suffer with poor quality, more time is needed to complete the job and manhour costs go up.  To fight an unreasonable deadline, you either had to pay for a lot of overtime or accept poor quality in the finished product.  And something that is cheap is by its nature poor quality.  But to get all three, it was possible.  You had to have engineers who were salaried, and never got compensating time or overtime pay, to work unpaid hours that were never recorded on their timesheets to meet a deadline with a quality product – and everything outside the engineer’s control had to perfectly fall into place which rarely happens anyway.  In other words, you invent a new type of slavery.  Uncompensated employment so that you do not experience the unemployment lines again.  And the boss benefits by receiving a higher bonus (a bonus that the engineer never sees) and the company gets more profit.  And there have been cases when the engineer was laid off anyway.

But to tie this remembrance to Proverbs 21:5-6 and verse 8, diligence can produce a better product and produce the product on time.  Haste to make the product in a short time, usually produces an inferior product.  And the lying boss who says he can get quality, low cost, and on time from the unpaid hours of his employees will soon get laid off himself.

Proverbs 21:7 might talk about those same people, but there is an atmosphere of violence added in this one verse.  I had other bosses that used violence to obtain the same end: On time, low cost, and quality.  But God upholds the upright.  As for me, I have the aches and pains from some of the abuse, but I am where God wants me to be, honoring Him and serving Him.  God is the best boss that I ever had.

And now let us sing.

The following song is My Tribute.  This is composed and sung by Andraé Crouch.  If this doesn’t send chills down your spine and tears to your eyes, think of how wonderful God is and how puny we are, and hit the replay button.  But maybe that is just me.

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord,
We need Your wisdom.  Lord, all these proverbs boil down to one thing, “In the Lord’s hand.”  Help me to get out of the way so that You can work great things in this world.  You, Lord, can heal the sick.  You can restore the broken.  And You can save, if only we repent.  Yes, Lord, I need to get out of my own way as well as getting out of your way.  Forgive me and use me to Your glory.
In thy Name we pray.
Amen

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.