Jeremiah 51:1-53, Titus 2:1-15, Psalms 99:1-9, Proverbs 26:17
Today is the 27th day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we continue our journey through this month and through this week and see the seasons change. And for us, here in the South in the rolling hills of Tennessee, it’s kind of a transition into more of the rainy season, the wet season, wintertime. We don’t get much snow here. So, it’s kind of like a rainy season. So, we’re transitioning our way and I’m sure everywhere that experiences autumn it’s kind of the same. The temperatures cool, the leaves change, the rains come and then in the midst of all that there’s these beautiful days that are just spectacular. So, let’s enjoy where we are as we are as we move forward. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Today, Jeremiah chapter 51 versus 1 through 53.
Commentary:
Okay. Well let's…let’s talk about dog ears then. Let’s talk about dog ears and meddling straight out of the Proverbs today. So, dogs…like I’ve been around dogs, you know, most of my life I…I suppose…now that I think about it. Yeah. I have a couple of dogs now, we do, Jill and I, the family. We have a couple of dogs. We have Lucy. She’s an Australian Shepherd and she’s a little princess and she’s the best dog I’ve ever had. And then we have Maggie who is a little Yorky Poo with a completely different personality than Lucy. And they’re both sweethearts and Lucy just wants to please and she wants to love. And Peggy, she’s kind of a bit of an opportunist but they’re good girls and we love them and we play with them and you can…you can be playing with your dog and they can be growling at you and you can have your hand in their mouth and you’re moving a toy around or whatever, and everybody knows that this is play. And, so they’re trying to pull something out your hand and you’re trying to jerk back or whatever. But you sneak up…if…if you sneak up on any of them…if I sneak up, especially on Maggie, she will snap. She’s scared. She snaps. It’s like grabbing her ears and not letting them go, she would be so angry. But if you sneak up on a dog and don’t just spook them so that they bark but you sneak up on them and grab their ears and that’s how they become aware of your presence, that’s gonna…well…I’d have to try it to find out what happens but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to try. They’re gonna snap back, which is what happens to us when we meddle in something that isn’t ours to be involved in, that we have inserted ourselves into a conflict that isn’t ours, but we have an opinion about it all. Or we insert ourselves into a conversation that may be a debate but we just amp it up to the next level because we’ve got to tell what we think, Like, we’ve got to be seen and heard. And, of course, we probably know people to do that about just about everything even though there was never an invitation to offer the opinion. And, so, the same thing happens to us. When somebody inserts themselves unexpectedly into something that is none of their business it’s almost like we were a dog and they snuck up and grabbed us by the ears because we want to snap at that. We want to put it in its place. And man, the proverb couldn’t come at a better time, right? I mean, there’s a lot of that going around. And it’s interesting, when we insert ourselves and meddle in something and then get snapped at then we have his righteous indignation like we’ve been wronged when we were the one that inserted ourselves into the story and got snapped at. So, Proverbs has told us one sentence about a dog and about meddling and we have to look deeper below the surface. What’s going on here? What is the wisdom here? And we could say, “well the baseline wisdom here is don’t meddle if you don’t want to be snapped at.” But like one layer below that is, “why do we feel the need to insert ourselves and meddle in this particular thing in the first place? What pulls us continually into these kinds of things where we’re inserting ourselves? And then maybe one side question to that would be, “is God inviting me to insert myself into this?” which would be a different story, which would then be like, “well if I get snapped at in that kind of scenario then I know I'm…I’m going into it with love. I'm…I’m trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the situation. And if I get snapped at in the process then I can understand what’s going on here.” But most of our meddling isn’t that. Most of our meddling isn’t that. We meddle. We insert ourselves and stir up the pot and get involved in things that have nothing to do with us. So, asking simply, “how will this play out? If I go into this and I haven’t been invited by God to insert myself into this, will I be able to represent the kingdom in this? How will this affect all of these relationships and the witness of the kingdom of God that I’ve devoted myself to?” If the answer is like, “there’s no real redeeming value here. I’m not being asked by God to do this. It is my need to be heard. It is my need to give my two cents but really nothing good probably can come from this.” Probably not a good idea to grab the dog’s ears then. Only gonna get snapped at. So, underneath it all, this little proverb, this little sentence about dog ears and meddling is a proverb that forces us to check our own motives before we get involved in anything. Why are we about to go into this kind of battle or this kind of confrontation? Can anything redeeming come of it? Good words for these days.
Prayer:
Father, we invite You into that. It’s again a reminder that our mouths and the things that we form with our mouths have unmeasurable power in this world. The wrong word at the wrong time causes terrible mayhem and we know that well because we’ve caused it and we’ve been swept into it and we’ve meddled in places that we don’t belong. And, so, come Holy Spirit help us with that, help us to slow down. Really what’s required, and so many of these wise Proverbs are the active slowing down in our decision-making process, that we take a beat before we speak, that we take a beat before we act and consider the trajectory. What good can come of this? Can I represent the kingdom of God in this? Help us to ask these questions now as much as has ever been needed. We need this. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
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