Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, you guys, welcome back to the Amani Talks podcast.
You're here with your host Amani and Lilian for the day.
I guess she wants to be with me so bad.
I don't blame her, though, because I have been leaving
the cats alone. Not alone alone. Someone comes up and
you know, checks on them, and they have each other.
But I do feel bad because they don't have me.
(00:20):
I've been traveling so much, so I'm just letting the
cats be in the podcast. Okay, sorry, you guys, she's
gonna be walking around. But welcome back to the podcast
where we discuss our Christian based topics and deepening our
relationship with the Lord. And we are continuing on in
our proverb but Day series for July eighteenth, that we
are going to be reading Proverbs eighteen, highlighting key verses
that resonate with us, things that we want to learn
(00:41):
more about, things that just stick out to us. And yeah,
we just do a little discussion. You comments your favorite verse,
I talk about my favorite verse, and we get our
daily dose of the Book of Wisdom to start our
morning off.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
And yeah, let's get into it all right, Proverbs eighteen.
Let's read it.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
A man who isolates himself, seeks his own desire. He
rages against all wise judgment. A fool has no delight
in understanding, but in expressing his own heart. When the
wicked comes, contempt comes also, and with dishonor comes reproach.
The words of a man's mouth are deep waters. The
well spring of wisdom is a flowing brook. It is
(01:19):
not good to show partiality to the wicked, or to
overthrow the righteous in judgment. A fool's lips insert into contention,
and his mouth calls for blows. A fool's mouth is
his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.
The words of a talebearer are like tasty trifles, and
they go down into the inmost body. He who is
slothful in his work is a brother to him who
(01:41):
is a great destroyer. The name of the Lord is
a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are safe.
The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and like
a high wall in his own esteem before destruction. The
heart of a man is haughty, and before honor is humility.
He who answers a matter before he hears it, it
is folly and shame to him. The spirit of a
(02:02):
man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear
a broken spirit? The hearts of the prudence acquires knowledge,
and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. A man's
gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.
The first one to plead his cause seems right until
his neighbor comes and examines him. Casting lots causes contentions
(02:23):
to cease and keeps the mighty apart. A brother offended
is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions
are like the bars of a castle. A man's stomach
shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth, from
the produce of his lips, he shall be filled. Death
and life are in the power of the tongue. In
those who love it will eat its fruit. He who
finds a wife, finds a good thing, and obtains favor
(02:44):
from the lord. The poor man uses entreaties, but the
rich answers roughly. A man who has friends must himself
be friendly. But there is a friend who sticks closer
than a brother man eighteen another one of those chapters
that has some famous versus. He who finds a wife,
finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord,
(03:05):
Then you know what, that's one of my favorite I
quote that verse so often when I'll be trying to
tell a woman don't chase man. It never says a
woman that finds a husband. It says a man who
finds a wife, he has to find, he has to look,
he has to seek. Okay, love that verse another one.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
(03:26):
and those who love it will eat its fruits. That's
another famous verse. And verse twenty four. I've heard this
from my mom. A man who has friends must himself
be friendly. But there is a friend who sticks closer
than a brother. So that's another very notable verse. And
from those three I think are my key verses. But
I also really love verse ten. The name of the
(03:47):
Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to it
and are safe.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You guys know me.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I love the more practical verses, the verses that kind
of tell us what to do. If the Bible is
a Christian and cheat code to life, I need the
play by play. I need the instructions. Okay, and Proverbs
eighteen really does give us good instruction. I really love
how in verse twenty four it says a man who
has friends must himself first be friendly. I really like
(04:14):
that because that's a direct instruction if we complain about
not having friends. And there are many reasons why we
might not have a big group of friends, right. We
talked about that a couple episodes over where we said,
you know, Christians are not necessarily popular. You might not
have a big group of friends like you did before
you started living for the Lord because the world would
(04:35):
hate Christians. You need to find your solid Christian group,
and that might not necessarily look like this huge community
that you have envisioned in your mind or like you
had before pre christ It's very hard to find like
minded Christians who are on the same path as you,
because one thing I found out is just because someone
is a Christian and they could very may well be
(04:57):
like a real Christian, right, doesn't really make it so
that you automatically click. If you have Jesus in common,
at least you have like a common ground. But true
friendship it needs more than that, and you need Christian
friends who are on the same path as you when
it comes to the speed in which you're running towards Jesus,
when it comes to the same maybe passions they have,
(05:19):
maybe you guys serve in the same ministry because you
have the same gift for something you know, like areas
like that is where friendship comes from. And when we
are focusing on having Christian friends, we have to go
out of our way to be friendly. I can acknowledge that.
Sometimes in my life I look around and it seems like, man,
other people is just easy for them to make friends.
(05:39):
Why does making friends not come easy to me? Like that?
And then I realize my weakness a lot of times
when it comes to social encounters is the fact that
I am not super friendly. I'm kind, I'm nice, I'm generous.
But when it comes to me going out of my
way to be friendly, to go up and talk to
people first, to even be good at small talk that
(06:00):
leads to, you know, more in depth speaking that leads
to friendships, I'm not that good at that. I'm not
that good at being the extrovert that is needed to
make friends. And that's just my personality. And when I
think about, man, why don't I have a lot of
friends like this person has, yes' because they're friendly. Sometimes
(06:21):
we want things to come into our lives that we're
not necessarily putting out into the world. You want friends,
but you're not friendly. You want money but you're not
hard working. You want a six pack abs, but you
don't go to the gym. So you know, I sometimes
we tend to be a little lazy with these very
basic principles in life. And one thing I realized is
it's a lack of discipline that holds you back from
(06:42):
your full potential in the Lord, you probably could have
friends if you went outside your comfort zone and went
out of your way to be friendly. A lot of
times we have to realize that true friendship sometimes comes
with being inconvenienced, and in today's culture, nobody wants to
be inconvenienced. People that work in customer service don't even
when a Greek customers. They think that saying hi when
(07:02):
a customer walks into a store is going above and beyond.
We have this conversation right now about the gen z Stare,
about how they just look at you and not greet
you when they're working. It's weird.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I've experienced it, like hello, you know, like are we good?
It's something wrong.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So, because we live in this very individualistic you know,
I'm out for myself, dogg eat dog kind of mentality,
it's hard for us to make friends because every person
is out for themselves. Like no, you have to be
willing to be inconvenienced by people to show that you
love them. If the love comes easy, if the help
comes easy, then really, what is it? I know that
(07:39):
you love me when you're willing to give me your
last I know that you care for me when you're
willing to be sacrificial with what you have, whether that
be resources, money, conversation, companionship. When you just got off
of work and you're tired and you still come out
to the function to support me. That's how I know
that we're really friends. If everything comes easy, you know,
like the Bible says, what does again a Christian? If
(08:01):
you love those who love you love your enemies. That's
the hard thing to do. So some of us, you know,
we sit back and we think that things are just
supposed to fall into our lap. We think that friends
are just going to magically appear into our lives. Sometimes
there are things that you have to put the work into.
Sometimes there is a fine line between going out of
your way to maintain a friendship and people pleasing And
that's what we talked about on that same episode a
(08:23):
few chapters ago to where sometimes you don't have friends
because you're a people pleaser. The Lord is trying to
prune you of that people pleasing. He is trying to
prune you out of being so easily influenced by the world.
He is trying to prune you of several things. Sometimes
that's probably why right now you don't have friends. But
when the Lord does grace you with friendships, you have
to understand there is work that goes into that. And
(08:44):
there is a woman her name is Trinity. She has
the podcast friend Fusion. It's a Christian podcast, and she's
great with talking about putting in the effort for friendships,
making friendships a priority in your life because they are
very important. When you look at David and John, I
believe they had a friendship to where it says that
their souls were tethered to each other. And there are
(09:05):
relationships that we can have besides romantic relationships where they
are really strong like that, because we do need people
in our corner, We do need people that are going
to advocate for us. It not only feels good to
have somebody in your corner, it's good for your mental health.
It's what the Lord created relationships for it's edifying to
the body, and it just shows a great example of
(09:27):
love and Jesus's love for us when we are good
friends with people. So I will challenge us as Christians
when the Lord has put us in the season of
finding friends or gaining a spouse, or gaining whatever you're
waiting for. When it comes to the Lord giving you
things that you need in your Christian walk. When it's
that season, you walk into it and you sustain it well.
(09:49):
You take tidbits from Proverbs where it says a man
who has friends must himself be friendly. Be friendly to
have friends, be hard working in order to have a
ministry that flourishing. Prove yourself to be responsible with the
small things before God gives you the big things in life.
And don't even get me started on verse twenty two.
(10:10):
He who finds a wife finds a good thing and
obtains a favor from the Lord. Men, you want favor
over your life. The Lord is telling you very a
very practical way to gain his favor by having a wife,
and not just by having a wife, but by being
a husband, Okay, by godly leadership, by submitting your way
to the Lord and then your wife submits to you
by running your household well, keeping your children in check,
(10:33):
putting God first, family second, the church after that. That
is how you obtain favor from the Lord, a very easy,
practical way. You want to be a bachelor your whole life,
you want to intentionally make yourself struggle. A lot of us.
You know, we talk about singleness is a gift, and
that is so true, but it is a gift that
is not for the majority. It is not. If you
(10:56):
really feel like the Lord has put singleness on your heart,
then you better be out there. You're a missionary, you
better be in full time ministry in some capacity. You
better be going all in and all out for the Lord.
If singleness is your ministry and you are going to
be married to the Lord, you better be doing something
very big with what the Lord gives you. Because if
(11:16):
you single and chilling, you're living in sin. If you
say the Lord has you to be single and you
are doing nothing with your single season, to him, it
is a sin because that's the whole point of the
single season. If you want to be a bachelor your
whole life because you love fornication, that's a different thing.
You want to be a bachelor your whole life because
(11:38):
you have commitment issues. That is different. You cannot talk
about singleness being your gifts when you're just dodging commitment.
That's not what the singleness being a gift means. Absolutely not.
You're single because you're afraid of having kids. That's not
what God was talking about. Y'all've heard me talk multiple
times about how kids are the furthest thing from my mind.
But if I get married and God tells me to
(11:58):
have kids, guess what. I'm having kids? Kids, easy peasylemon, squeezy.
I'm doing with my life whatever the Lord has me
to do. And if God is telling you that a
way to obtain favor with him is by finding the
wife that God has for you, by praying for your wife,
the Lord leading you to her getting married, why wouldn't
you do it? Even the world, outside of religion, outside
(12:23):
of the Lord, even the world looks at married men
as more favorable.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
They're looked at as more trustworthy.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
They advance in their jobs quicker on average, they live longer,
you know, because they got their wives cooking for them,
and women are more healthy than men. They make more
money over their lifetime and their careers. There's a lot
of benefits to you being a married man and doing
it the right way. And by doing it the right way,
I mean doing it God's way, not just oh, you know,
marriage before sex or whatever. I mean truly being a
(12:51):
man of God. There's a lot of favor in that.
If the Bible is giving you a cheat code to
obtain favor with God, why wouldn't you use it? So
those are my key verses that really stood out to
me in Proverbs. Verses that we've all talked about before,
Verses that we've quoted before, very practical applications to our lives.
I just love how Proverbs just gives us this very
clear instruction. You want friends, be friendly, you want favorite
(13:14):
from the Lord, find your wife and get married. The
Bible can be your cheat code to life if you
use it. Okay, all right, That is all I have
for Proverbs eighteen. Drop your verses in the comments, and
I will see you for Proverbs nineteen.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Bye.