The house we live in sits in a pretty large plot of land. There are a couple of grassy areas and quite a lot paving – for the paths. Unfortunately, that paving has not been put down very helpfully as the cracks in between deep enough that I sometimes suspect I can see the earths core. Those cracks also form the perfect foothold for weeds.

You can remove the weeds but, during the summer months, you need to started again long before you finish working your way round. Staying on top of the weeds is simply a lost battle.

Prevention is better than cure

We all know that preventing something from happening is usually the best course of action: allowing my very young son to pick up a pretty hot poker from the fire, because I’d grown tired of telling him not to, resulted in him picking it up (under secret supervision) and dropping it VERY fast. It wasn’t hot enough to hurt him, but it was hot enough for me to never worry about him picking it up again. Lesson learned!

And some lessons are best learned like that! Which perhaps explains why people who use explosives for demolition need at least one scary moment behind them that they’ve survived.

With the weeds we don’t need caution, but a flamethrower. If I could only prevent them forming it would be oh, so, much easier!

As a – nearly – 45 years old man I’ve now learned a little bit of wisdom. Mostly hard earned and I have the emotional, and odd physical scar, to prove those life lessons were learned.

Aging in wisdom?

At 15 you don’t know what you know at 25. At 25 you don’t know what you know at 35. At 35 you don’t know what you know at 45: some things can learned about, and others things have to be learned for us to truly understand them; I don’t need to put my hands in the fire to prevent them getting burned!

Looking around the world at the problems that we see teenagers struggling through is evidence of people who have been encouraged to lean on their own understanding of life.

We’re already seeing the results of those who were not taught that picking up a hot poker will permanently scar you. It is a tragedy we will have to live out for generations to come.

Proverbs 3 verse 5 tells us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Deviate from that and it goes wrong.

We don’t need more common sense! That’s always going to be flawed because it is absolutely based on our own understanding.

What we need is to trust the advice and wisdom of God.

Andy B