A Woman's Wisdom: How the Book of Proverbs Speaks to Everything Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t work out. Inevitably, one or more of our goals is going to get derailed. A young woman goes off to college fully expecting that she will be engaged by graduation, or accepted into a good program for a post-graduate degree, or wind up with the job of her dreams. When some—or all, as the case may be—of those plans fail to materialize, the college graduate feels bewildered and wonders where things went wrong.
    Many of us have lived long enough to know that goals are better termed hopes , since we have seen many of our best-laid plans go astray. Over time we might come to think of what we wind up doing as a sort of Plan B. But the truth is that there is no Plan B. There is only Plan A. That’s because
The plans of the heart belong to man,
but the answer of the tongue is from the L ORD .
(Prov. 16:1)
    If we think we are stuck in Plan B, it’s because our idea of Plan A was just that—our own idea, not God’s. God has good purposes for us, whether he accomplishes them through the goals we set or through thwarting those goals and leading us along paths we hadn’t planned on. We may not be able to discern his purposes, but Proverbs teaches us that we can rest assured that he has them and that he is overseeing the fulfillment of them:
The heart of man plans his way,
but the L ORD establishes his steps. (Prov. 16:9)
    And
The king's heart is in the hand of the L ORD ,
Like the rivers of water;
He turns it wherever He wishes. (Prov. 21:1 NKJV )
    What happened to the prophet Jonah is a good illustration of how God works sovereignly in the lives of his people. God instructed Jonah to go to Nineveh with a message of coming judgment, but Jonah didn’t like God’s plan, so he embarked on a plan of his own design by boarding a ship for Tarshish. Many of us know what happened: a big storm arose, and eventually Jonah was tossed overboard and swallowed by a large fish. There, in the belly of the fish, Jonah repented of his willfulness. Afterward the fish vomited him onto dry land, and from there Jonah proceeded to Nineveh.
    Jonah’s missionary work in Nineveh might have been Plan B so far as Jonah was concerned, but because it was God’s plan, it had always been Plan A. God got Jonah where he wanted him, despite Jonah’s attempts to run away, and God does the same thing with us. Our response doesn’t change the outcome, any more than it did with Jonah; it merely determines whether the way there will be easy or hard.
    Wisdom helps us to shape our plans in keeping with God’s ways, which in turn keeps us from vainly spinning our wheels; and it spares us and others the frustration that inevitably results when plans are made and pursued with little or no knowledge of God. Then, if things don’t go as we had hoped, wisdom enables us to live contentedly in his sovereign ordering of the details of our lives.

    Actively Pursue It
    Although wisdom is near to us and not too hard to understand, we must actively pursue it. Just consider the active verbs in this passage:
My son, if you
receive
my words
and treasure
up
my commandments with you,
making
your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the L ORD
and find the knowledge of God. (Prov. 2:1–5)
    We may think that receiving God’s words is a passive action, something we sit back to read and absorb while sipping a mug of coffee, but if you look at how the passage is structured, you will see that making our ears attentive, inclining our hearts, calling out, raising our voices, seeking, and searching are all part of how we grow in wisdom.

    Obey
    We also grow wise by obedience. In fact, seeking to live in obedience to God’s Word is a necessary heart attitude for all who wish to be wise:
My son, keep my words
and treasure up my commandments with you;
keep my commandments and