Think Before Acting

A person with good sense is respected;a treacherous person walks a rocky road.Wise people think before they act;fools don’t and even brag about it.

Proverbs 13:15-16

This proverb clearly paints the picture that living foolishly, carelessly, thoughtlessly has hard consequences. It is a bad way to live.

And so today I’d like to talk to moms. Every child is going to make mistakes. They’re going to leap before they look. It’s part of immaturity and inexperience. But if the sympathetic side of you always wants to pad them from the bumps so they never experience the painful consequences of their choices, they gain nothing. In fact, since being careless is easier if they get away with it, it reinforces the weak side of them and trains them to say, “So what?”

But if, while they still live under your roof and while most of their consequences are not “life threatening,” you do let them experience some painful results of their mistakes, the lessons will stick with them much longer. If they realize that the next time they spend their lunch money on a CD, no one’s going to bail them out, it might—no promises, but it just might—make them think. They might learn the old principle, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

So let your daughter spend all her allowance on one expensive pair of jeans, but don’t bail her out when she has no money for tennis shoes or lip gloss. You both will find out no one died, really.

Make It Personal . . . Live It Out!

Wise people think before they act. It’s our own responsibility to be responsible. No one is going to show up and manage our lives for us. You know the old saying: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” So, let me challenge you to honestly look at one area that you feel you are not managing well. Have you ever sat down specifically and talked to God about it? I love to sit down with a notepad. In prayer, I ask the Lord questions and ask him to give me a plan. Then—the important part—I quiet my heart to listen. Will you try it? You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

One Year Bible Reading

Joshua 21:1–22:20; Luke 20:1-26; Psalm 89:1-13; Proverbs 13:15-16