If today I decide to walk the way of understanding and wisdom does it guarantee that everything will be easy, good, and right for me tomorrow and every day that follows? No. What if I stray from the path of understanding? What if I decide to go to the house of the adulterous? (2:18, 5:23, 7:22, 9:18) What if I start trusting in myself instead of God? (Psalm 49:13,14) Then, as this proverb guarantees, my path will end and I will rest in the company of the dead.
Thus, Jesus instructs me, “Take up your cross and follow me.”If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.” (Matthew 16:24-27)
Living every day and every moment the life Jesus teaches is not easy. In fact, I know that if it were not for the Holy Spirit turning me into his temple I would fail. For as Jesus proclaimed when he found his three main apostles sleeping and not praying as he instructed them on the Mount of Olives, “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” (Matthew 26:40-41, Mark 14:38)
