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It would seem we need no instruction in how to cheat…

I have continued to puzzle over one of the Proverbs passages from last week…the one in Proverbs 19.

An interesting couplet of thoughts that at first seemed unrelated in the NKJV.

What is desired in a man is kindness…and a poor man is better than a liar. V 22

Kindness and how it relates to sacrificing truth to gain wealth.

So I have been “watching” for this parable in real life.

Because the point of the Proverbs is for us to SEE with our spiritual eyes and understand the TRUTH of these statements, so they TRANSFORM us.

And yesterday I got my AHA! moment.

I was helping Rachel yesterday with corralling the band of brothers as she continues to heal and care for Sweet Caroline while Zach returned to work.

They had given the boys a Monopoly Junior game and so I got invited to join the fun.

At six, Graham has gained the skills to play this kind of game. Emmett…not so much.

I give Graham credit for his patience with his brother who tends to roll the dice in a way that scatters all the pieces on the board.

Every. Single. Time.

And it didn’t seem to bother him one little bit that Emmy counts four squares by choosing any four he would like instead of four in a row.

But I also noticed that Graham was able to manipulate the game in such a way that he could engineer extra turns for himself and find ways to decrease our stacks of paper money while increasing his.

I spent a lot of the game pointing and counting squares for Emmett while keeping my eye on Graham and reminding him about the honesty factor.

Not gonna lie…it hurt.

It was love at first sight for me with this little goober.

And I thought for the first two years that we finally had seen the birth of a perfectly faultless human.

I know.

Forgive me Lord.

But love is blind until the eyes are open.

As it turns out our little people are 100% human, just like every one of us.

Graham, Emmett…Joel and even, sigh, Sweet Caroline…will not have to be taught how to cheat to win.

Their mommy and daddy, supported and loved and backed up by an army of family warriors, teachers, church leaders and mentors will prayerfully instruct them…

in every arena from board games to boardrooms…

It is better to have been fair and just and lose the game than to win through dishonest means.

Correction is hard and it hurts…but when we realize that we ALL have the same weakness…we can administer the needed correction with love and grace and confidence because we KNOW it is God’s way…

and His ways are always best.

I understood God’s heart behind this Proverb more clearly yesterday.

I understood how unbecoming the desire to have the most of whatever is available is and how beautifully precious being motivated by kindness is.

The premium is on the heart…not the profit.

I understand that LOVE means we help each other to move away from our natural tendencies and bent AND move toward God’s transforming and restoring love.

Now to turn this lesson inward to make sure that greedy little six year old that still rears her head from time to time in Lola gets called out and continues to receive and apply the teachings from God’s heart.

 

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