Which would you prefer? Would you tell your dear friend the truth – or hope someone else does it?

It could be as simple as a zipper falling or as complex as a bad behavior pattern. Would you do the telling?

If you don’t tell them, do you really love them?

Open rebuke is better than secret love. (Prov 27:5)

Matthew Henry’s commentary of this passage reads:

The physician’s care is to cure the patient’s disease, not to please his palate

So it goes with love. Reveal, rather than conceal, truths to those you love.

On the other side, receive such words from one who loves you, knowing the intent. I wish I would’ve in so many cases of loving rebuke. While it may not have seemed so then, I am grateful to those who loved me so much to tell me the truth.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. (Prov 27:6)

Faithful are the wounds of a friend. With loving intent and risk, telling truths with love.

We live in such a time that outrage is a sport of sorts. There seems to be an addiction, almost like outrage porn.

• Someone cuts you off in traffic going way too fast. Now you’re upset! You follow them … to the Emergency Room entrance. They are running into the hospital with their child.
• Someone looks in your direction from across the street and makes weird faces and gestures with their hand. You yell at them from your side, “What’s your problem?” They don’t hear you. They are too busy trying to get the bee off of them without spilling their latte.
• Someone manipulates a headline or photoshops an image and the buzz feeds the finger-pointers and meme mongrels.

Proverbs 25:8 warns us to slow things down:

Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbour hath put thee to shame.

Often, we enter a battle without knowing the grounds or even what the battle is about. The battle has become the game. Outrage the addiction. Facebook the needle?

Slow down. Keep your wood off the fire (Prov 26:20). Don’t be in a hurry to battle.

There might not be one worth fighting.

If you do find a battle, settle it amicably and privately (Prov 25:9).

As I was checking out at the grocery store, my eye got caught and lust practically took over.

A Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

For me, these little goodies are not profitable. Money I shouldn’t spend. Sugar I shouldn’t deposit. Habits quicker getting into than out.  Plus, my wife, being allergic to chocolate, probably shouldn’t kiss lips which have given such entry.

For me, even thinking of a candy is foolish. For me. Maybe not for you. We might each have our own foolish thoughts.

And foolish thoughts lead to foolish deeds. That’s probably why Prov 24:9 tells me:

The thought of foolishness is sin

Also, in 2Cor 1:5, I am told to throw away such imaginative thoughts, bringing into captivity every thought for Christ’s sake.

Foolish thoughts, when given their course, lead to foolish deeds.

In plain, “Pthu to Sin!” and away with foolish thoughts.