Foolishness

Some would say I am "quick witted" but I have learned recently, that this is not how God would label my comments.  I'm reading a wonderful book, Making Great Conversationalists about helping my children become good conversationalists.  To share the love of Christ with a lost world, you MUST be able to converse with people.  While reading through the book, I was confronted with the possibility that I joke too much.  This is for several reasons, which I won't go into right now, but I digress.  Today, I read a verse that brought this back to mind.

One of our children, in particular, makes some REALLY bad choices.  Very foolish choices. Always followed by an attitude that is nearly unbearable.  Far too often.... FAR too often, I deal with it inappropriately and smart off back to him.  Why?  I don't know.  Because I'm a sinner too. Today God showed me, yet again, that I need to work on me than I need to work on him.

Proverbs 26:4 - Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

There is no reason that I should act a fool just because someone else is doing so.  So many times I ask him why in the world that he acts the way he does, or says the things he does, or makes the nasty faces he makes.  He, of course, has no answer.  He is a child.  His wisdom is yet to come. Thankfully, God has the answer to my silly question:

Proverbs 22:15 - Folly is bound up in the heart of a child

I am no longer a child.  I need to stop acting like it.  There is a time to grow out of this silly behavior.  If I expect one of my little ones to stop acting foolish, than I certainly need to do the same.

1 Corinthians 13:11 - When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

You are reading this.  That means you are friend enough to keep an eye on me and my childish ways.  Help me watch my tongue, okay?