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

live;
keep my teaching as the apple of your eye. (Prov. 7:1–2)
    Obedience and wisdom go hand in hand because obeying God is always wise. As we pursue a lifestyle of obedience, it will lead us to a deeper understanding of why obeying all God’s ways is the best path. It will also lead to a greater depth of obedience, which will enrich both our walk with the Lord and our enjoyment of day-to- day life.

    Accept God’s Discipline
    Growing in wisdom also entails recognizing and accepting God’s discipline:
Do not despise the Lord's discipline,
or be weary of his reproof. (Prov. 3:11)
    Job, at the beginning of his hard time, shows us how to live out Proverbs 3:11. After Job lost his livelihood and his children and was struck with painful boils all over his body, his wife said to him, “Do you still hold to your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9 NKJV ). But Job rebuked her for her lack of wisdom, saying, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (v. 10 NKJV ). Job’s submission to God’s work in his life is a hallmark of wisdom.
    We tend to think of God’s discipline as being the same as how we discipline our kids: they misbehave, and we punish them to teach them that a particular misbehavior is destructive. God’s discipline of us, however, is often not linked to some specific wrongdoing on our part. When things go wrong in our lives, we are tempted to try to hunt up what we might have done to cause the difficulty. It is true that sometimes a particular trouble is God’s way of pointing out a particular sin we have been ignoring or refusing to repent of, but if no connection is made evident, we don’t have to wrack our brains to dig up something. If there’s a connection, God is able to make it clear. If no connection is evident, we can simply trust God in the midst of our difficulty and focus on this truth:
    It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discpline? If you are left without discpline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who discplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subect to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. (Heb. 12:7–10)

    Rest in Christ
    Cultivating such wisdom would be an impossible task were it not for the primary means through which it comes—abiding in Christ. The wisest women are those who have discovered that wisdom and its fruits come most fully to those who seek them not in themselves but in another. Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:28–29). The yoke Jesus had in mind was a plowing device. Once placed around the neck of an animal and hitched to the plow, the animal could move only where the cart driver directed. But, unlike the farmer with his oxen, Jesus doesn’t force us to wear his yoke; he invites us. If we accept his invitation, we are going to learn his ways as he steers us along paths of his choosing, and as we do, we are promised to find rest.

    benefits of wise living
    The benefits of wise living are too numerous to include in a single book, but let’s look at a few of them. Women who live wisely will experience, first, security . Wise women are confident that they rest on safe ground:
You will walk on your way securely,
and your foot will not stumble.
If you lie down, you will not be afraid;
when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.
(Prov. 3:23–24)
    Wise women have no fear. Because they trust God, they have no need for anxiety. They are confident that a kind, wise God is in control of