Proverbs 2 | A Proverb A Day Challenge

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi you guys, welcome back to the Amani Talks podcast.
You're here with your host Amani on the podcast where
we talk about our Christian based topics and deepening our
relationship with the Lord. Good morning, Good morning you guys.
Very early for us, this is different. This is early
for us. Good morning. If you're on your way to work,
if you are just starting your day, if you're at
the gym, whatever you are doing. I love you guys

(00:21):
for joining. Make sure you are subscribed so that you
can stay on track with our Proverbs a Day series.
And we are currently on Proverbs chapter two, and we
are going to do a Proverbs chapter every single day
to start off our day with a little godly wisdom, knowledge,
a little word to start our day off with the Lord.
So let's get into chapter two of Proverbs. What we

(00:43):
do every chapter is we go through the entire chapter,
so we read it together. We highlight a key verse,
We highlight a portion that stands out to us. I
would really encourage you all too. These are just my
key versus and a portion of the section or a
portion of the chapter that stands out to me. If
you guys have another key verse that you know we're
reading it together, and you're like, oh, that really resonates

(01:04):
with me. Put it in the comments. I would really
like to hear what you guys grab from each chapter
as well, because we're going through this together. Okay, I've
never done of Proverbs a day. I read through it
and it was a struggle. So I was like, let's
tackle it a little bit differently. Let's do one a day,
and yeah, let's just let's get into it. So we
went through Proverbs one yesterday, and what we really gathered

(01:26):
from Proverbs one is the author Solomon, who is the
son of King David. He was also king of Israel,
wisest man in the land, richest man in the land. Right.
We talked about how the Lord asked him what do
you want? You know, like, what do you want from me?
I guess you know, I'll get the verse later on.
But the Lord himself asked Solomon, what do you want?

(01:47):
And Solomon said wisdom? And God gave him wisdom and
above and beyond that we already know because he was
so rich seven hundred wives girl, Okay, but anyway, yeah,
so he was the wisest man. He wrote the thirty proverbs,
and we're going through them. And the first part Proverbs,
we talked about what is wisdom and we god chapter
or verse seven that said, the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of knowledge, but the fools despise wisdom

(02:08):
and instruction. So we gather the Lord is who gives
us our wisdom, our understanding, our knowledge, instruction. And when
you step outside his godly wisdom and instruction is when
you are outside of safety. You're not safe from the
fear of evil. The wisdom of the Lord is literally
our physical barrier that he gives to his children, and
we just have to walk in it, walk in godly

(02:30):
wisdom and instruction every single day. So Proverbs too. From
what I've read and gathered, we're gonna talk about the
value of wisdom, all right, So let's free Proverbs two together.
I'm reading the new King James version, starting in verse one,
My son, if you receive my words and treasure my
commands within you, so that you incline your ear to

(02:50):
wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. Yes, if you
cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding,
if you seek her as silver and search for her
as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear
of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For
the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is

(03:12):
a shield to those who walk uprightly. He guards the
paths of justice and preserves the way of his saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity, and every
good path. When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is
pleasant to your soul. Discretion will preserve you. Understanding will
keep you. To deliver you from the way of evil,
from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who

(03:33):
leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways
of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil, and delight in
the perversity of the wicked, whose ways are crooked, and
who are devious in their pasts. To deliver you from
the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words,
who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the
covenant of her God. For her house leads down to death,

(03:54):
and her paths to the dead. None who go to
her return, nor do they regain the paths of life.
So you may walk in the way of goodness and
keep to the paths of righteousness. For the upright will
dwell in the land, and the blameless will remain in it,
but the wicked will be cut off from the earth,
and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it. So the
verse that stood out to me a key verse that

(04:16):
I read, and I'm like, okay, this goes in alignment
with what we talked about from Proverbs one, and it's
just reiterating it right verse six, it says, for the
Lord gives wisdom from his mouth come knowledge and understanding,
And we had already crossed reference First Corinthians where Paul
was talking about the gifts of the Spirit and how
two of them are knowledge and wisdom. So we know

(04:36):
that understanding knowledge comes from the Lord. And we talked
about how when you're surrounded by unbelievers and they just
always in some nonsense and you're like, am I the
only sane one in the room? Yes, girl, you are,
And you know they don't have the same wisdom, the
same knowledge that Christians have. The Holy Spirit raises your IQ. Okay.
So we talked about that already in chapter one, and

(04:58):
I feel like verse six of Proverbs two just kind
of states that again, just in case you missed it.
Don't think that your wisdom comes from you. It comes
from the world. It comes from just the experience that
you've gained. We put the wisdom title on older people
because we say they've been through so much, they've experienced
so much. The world sees wisdom as worldly experience. It

(05:20):
sees wisdom as you've been there, done that, and now
you can tell the younger generations not to do something right.
But that's not wisdom. We've already tackled. What wisdom and
understanding is. In the beginning of true wisdom and understanding
is the fear of the Lord. So a person could
be one hundred years old, still walking up right, still healthy,
look like they could go another twenty years. They've been

(05:42):
through some things. You know, if you're black and you've
been in this country for one hundred years, you've seen
some things. Okay, you've seen some things, and we could
look at them as wise. But they could be one
hundred years on this earth and unsaved, and they have
not an ounce of wisdom within them. Experience does not
equate to wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge. And wisdom, and we need to understand that.

(06:03):
And I feel like chapters one in chapters two are
really kind of running into each other. We're finding the
same themes of God giving you understanding, God giving you wisdom.
You're smart because of him. You know what's going on
because of him. You have discernment, you have insights because
of him. And another running theme from chap or from Proverbs.
One of proverbs too is the value of this wisdom? Right,

(06:26):
what do we gain from being wise? We know what
wisdom is, but what do we gain from it during
our time on earth? What does wisdom give us? And
the short answer is wisdom gives us protection from ourselves.
If wisdom comes from the Lord, we do not gain
it by anything that we do. But we also know
that we are constantly going outside of what God has

(06:48):
for us Verse seven. He is a shield to those
who walk up rightly. He guards the paths of justice
and preserves the way of his saints. So we see
right here, when we walk in godly wisdom our shield.
He protects us. So really it's protection protection against who
ourselves from devising our own paths that lead to destruction.

(07:09):
And I think the portion of scripture that really stands
out to me and really summarizes everything that Proverbs to
is talking about is verses eight through twelve. Yeah, eight
through twelve, and it says He guards the paths of
justice and preserves the way of his saints. I love that.
I love that God is covering me and preserving my way.

(07:30):
I don't have to do it myself. God is doing
it for me. Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity,
and every good path. When wisdom enters your heart and
knowledge is pleasant to your soul. Discretion will preserve you.
Understanding will keep you to deliver you from the way
of evil. Another theme I'm seeing in Proverbs Too that

(07:52):
I really do love is how it talks about God
preserving justice and being the one that issues equity. And
I really love that because it speaks to God's character,
speaks to who he is. God is a God of justice,
He is a judge. He's a good judge. He would
not be perfect, he would not be God if he
was not the one dispensing justice. And the reason that

(08:15):
I love that is I love passages of scripture that
describe who the Lord is to us. It describes his
personality and Right now, I'm reading through the Bible again
and I'm in Exodus, and I'm in the portion of
Exodus to where God has given Moses the instruction for
the Tabernacle and the ark of the Covenant, and just
how artistic God is and how he places such importance

(08:38):
on beauty and art. And that's not surprising because he's
the creator. He created the earth, he created flowers, he
created colors, so I can see passages like that, and
I'm reading through Exodus and I'm just like, God is
an artist. He likes art. That's a part of his personality.
He likes beauty. Not everyone appreciates art more. Some people

(09:00):
are more analytical. They're more of a numbers type of
person They're not very creative. God is creative, you know
how they say that creativity is like a TIGHTE B
kind of personality trait. God is creative. He is an artist.
And I like knowing that about him. And then when
I read stuff like this and Proverbs too, and it's
talking about justice and equity. And I also read that

(09:22):
in Exodus about how the Lord saw that the people
had servants and slaves and he said, Okay, if this
is what y'all want. This is what's gonna happen. You
can have these servants and slaves, but you need to
free your servants and slaves every seven years, the year
of Jubilee. I think it was so because he wants
equity amongst his people. See we know that later on

(09:45):
in the New Testament, I I don't know what chapter
it's in, but Paul talks about there is neither female
or male Jew or gentile slaver free. We're all equal
under Christ. That was always plan for us to have equity,
for us to be equal. And when I see Proverbs
to talking about justice and equity, I say, yes, God

(10:07):
is the judge of us. He's a good judge. He
dispenses justice. He likes he he loves everybody being on
an equal playing ground. That's one of his character traits.
He loves equity, he loves inclusion, he loves justice. He
wants to see people fair, like have a fear life,
play fair. And that's such a parent trait, Like he's

(10:28):
not called our father for no reason, Like that's that's
how fathers operate. That's how good fathers operate. That's how
good parents operate. When they have children. They don't favor
any of their children. All their children are equal. I know,
you know, they'd be saying that parents have a favorite child. Yeah,
I don't know how true that is. I don't have

(10:50):
any children, so I can't speak to that. But God
is perfect and that he does not have a favorite child.
He gives us all equity. He wants us to all
play faired and that just speaks to his character, and
it's very settling to me. It's very assuring to me.
It gives me peace to know that when wisdom enters
my heart and knowledge is pleasant to my soul, discretion

(11:13):
will preserve me, and understanding will keep me to deliver
me from the way of evil. One prayer that I
pray every single night is asking him to shield my mind, body,
and spirit while I'm sleeping, because one thing I've struggled
with in the past is you know, and this is
just the way that the Lord communicates with me, to
be honest with you, is through dreams. He's always kind

(11:35):
of given me dreams. Sometimes it's been a little jarring.
It's been a little scary to have dreams and then
see the dreams come to fruition, you know. But that's
just one way that the Lord communicates with me. And
whenever I have a nightmare, whenever I have an unsettling dream,
a scary dream, I've just learned to pray, God, cover

(11:57):
my mind, body and spirit while I sleep, Send your
angels to to while I'm sleeping till after me. And
whenever I pray those prayers, I don't have any trouble
when I'm sleeping. And there are just certain assurances and
promises that we can lean on when it comes to God,
and we see a lot of that and proverbs too,
we see a lot of the value of wisdom, the
value of walking with God. He shields us, He preserves us,

(12:20):
He keeps us, keeps us from what from evil, the
evil that's all around us. There are so many things
that we experience in life that the Lord is fighting
for us on our behalf that we will never even see,
let alone experience. So one thing I'll also make sure
to do is to thank him for the things that
his angels are battling all around me that I'm not

(12:41):
even aware of. And I don't have to be aware,
because he is my shield. He's taking that for me.
He's fighting those battles on my behalf. He's preserving me,
he's keeping me from evil. I don't even face evil
because his angels are attending to me. So I thank
him all the time for that too. And Proverbs too
also gives us examples of people to stay away because
we talk about our own folly leading to our own destruction,

(13:03):
but there are also people around us that can lead
us to destructive paths, and it gives us a couple examples.
For the minute says to stay away from the seductress,
it says to also to deliver you from evil, from
the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave
the paths of uprightness to walk in the way of darkness.

(13:25):
We have friends like that, we have family like that
that it seemed like they were on the path with us,
people that were going to church before we were even
going to church, you know. And people leave their faith
they were never really in it to begin with Proverbs,
who is telling us to not follow those people? Those

(13:46):
are people that we should have no dealings with. The seductress,
the one who's going to turn away from their faith
go down the other path. You pray for them, but
you don't walk with them. And that is the end
of Proverbs too. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Definitely
comment below your key versus the portions that spoke to you,
what you got from Proverbs to? And I will see

(14:07):
you guys tomorrow morning for Proverbs three. Bye,