WAYS OF WISDOM

Wisdom. 

What would you pay to gain it? 

But wisdom is something you can't purchase with gold, or a PhD from Harvard.  

How many seemingly successful people do we know who suck at life and relationships? 

Because God alone is the source of wisdom. With it, He too gives knowledge and understanding, Proverbs 2:6. 

Wisdom is simply the right application of knowledge. Yet, many find themselves pursuing empty gains. 

For example: God cautions against lusting after money, power, sex, the applause of men. 

Yet our hearts crave for these: 

More and more money—even if you have more than enough. 

Amassing to-die-for blings to upgrade your social standing. 

Pursuing questionable liaisons. 

Seeking to be in control over others. 

Or being concerned with people's approval rather than God's. The list could go on and on and on. 

"I have taught you the way of wisdom... the paths of uprightness," verse 11. 

Wisdom is simply traversing the right path, so that even when "you run, you will not stumble," verse 12. This is the secret to sleeping soundly at night.

WHY MUST IT ALWAYS BE THE CHILDREN?

I write this piece not because of any political or ideological conviction. 

I'm posting this because I believe that every life is precious. Each one counts because life is from the Creator Himself; so no one, powerful or downtrodden, rich or needful, has a right to tamper with it. There is simply no excuse.

As I write, the Texas government is in quandary about how it could halt the wave of illegal immigrants--mostly unaccompanied minors--streaming through its borders. This of course started when the new US administration announced that it was encouraging the entry of migrants seeking asylum--a signal for human trafficking and cartels to step up their game. 

"The thought of any child suffering under the hands of human traffickers is completely unacceptable," says Texas governor Greg Abbot. 

In a January 28 report, CNN's Caroline Kelly and Nicole Gaoutte reported that "President Biden signed a presidential memorandum... reversing restrictions on abortion access domestically and abroad imposed and expanded by the Trump administration," saying it will reverse the former president's attack on women's health access.

Granting asylum? Reversing attack on women's health access? Seemingly noble intentions. But what are these policies really solving--or encouraging? 

Organized hoodlums and thugs preying on desperate families and making use of innocent children so they can ply their human trafficking enterprise?

Promoting the murder of infants--yes, they're not mere tissue but thriving individuals even in the womb!--in the guise of caring for women's health and giving them free choice at the expense of those who could not fight back? 

Note CDC's (Center for Disease Control) abortion statistics in 2021. A total of 39,912,000 legal abortions in the US from 1973-2018. Recent laws have even allowed abortion of babies close to or at full term. 

Innocents offered in the altar of convenience--and lord greed? 

We're not ignorant of the fact that abortion is a thriving industry. The perpetrators have been exposed! Look it up, people!

"Women's health" makes good copy; but the trading of baby parts--in the guise of advancing science and saving lives--is the real deal as far as this industry is concerned. Mighty dollar rules.

We grieve for those babies and mothers and young children who have been used as pawns for political or monetary gain. Let's grieve for the young women who have made wrong choices and got themselves in murkier waters by allowing their babies to be aborted.  

I believe that no sane mother would have the heart to entrust her child to strangers unless she's desperate for that child's welfare and future. 

But why must it always be the children? Why must the unborn bear the brunt of the indecision of their mothers--or the adults round them? And why must innocent children be used by their parents to gain access to what they perceive are better lives waiting for them elsewhere? The end does not justify the means.

We must speak for the innocents, as Jesus did: "If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!" (Matthew 18:6–7, NIV)

Jeremiah 22:17 "But your eyes and your heart are intent only upon your own dishonest gain, and on shedding innocent blood and on practicing oppression and extortion."

Woe on governments and leaders who cause this to happen! Woe unto us who turn a blind eye!

May we not be like the self-righteous pharisees. After betraying Jesus, Judas went to them, saying "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." Their answer: "What is that to us?" (Matthew 27:4)

Or shall we behave like Pilate? Handing down the death penalty on Jesus, he washed his hands, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood." And the crowd responded, "His blood be on us and on our children." (Matthew 27:24b-25) 

You and I know what happened to the Jewish race.

A time of reckoning will come. May innocent blood not be on us. May we be found doing His will to keep babies and children safe. May we find the opportunity to give godly counsel to those who have made wrong choices that have endangered innocent lives. 

Prayer: Lord, you are the giver of life and the only who who can take it back; so protect the unborn, the little children. May the women or parents who have made wrong choices make it right with you and their children. Forgive us for our indifference. Enable us to act and champion the cause of the innocent. We lift our political leaders up to you, pleading you to touch their hearts towards repentance and reversal of their evil decisions. In the name of Jesus!