smart PERSON/Good Friend

Reference: Proverbs 17:9-10 Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends. 10 A single rebuke does more for a person of understanding than a hundred lashes on the back of a fool.

Observation: This passage answers two important questions: How can I keep my friendships? and What is one way I can be a more wise and understanding person?

In our friendships, the Bible reminds us that the problem we have with other's faults is how much time we spent thinking about them. It becomes, unfortunately, a way to make their problems become our own. Have you ever found yourself lying in bed obsession about a stupid thing someone has done? Do you find yourself more happy and contented or more and more upset?

The writer also gives us the solution: forgive--LET IT GO!! We must learn to let other people's problems and mistakes be theirs not ours. We need to train our hearts and minds to go quickly to the "forgiving place" and think about something else!! Remember what Paul recommended: think about what is pure, nobel and good instead of the bad stuff. We've got to learn to train our brains. We can't not think about something--especially something hurtful someone has done to us--but we can think about something else.

The second verse give us some great advice on how to be a smarter person. It is really simple: listen to correction, even when it hurts! We all have this tendency: if someone says something we need to hear but they don't say it completely kindly and gently, we reject it out of hand. We loses out in that exchange? We do. We have been given the gift of knowledge about the most important thing we could have knowledge--ourselves and we have refused the gift because it wasn't wrapped well.

Get wise--listen to correction. It will probably not be all true but, like gum, chew on it to get the good out of it and spit out the rest.

Application/Confession: I am so stinking guilty of rejecting correction. If Gloria, especially, doesn't say it

just right, I react instead of really listening. I am missing valuable information about where I can grow as a person by making it too hard for her to talk to me about those areas.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, give me an open heart to those who would bring a "good rebuke". I depend on You to protect my heart. Help me to be open to grow in wisdom and understanding.