Another 30 Days of Wisdom. Can't outrun.

Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand

and no one regarded, Because you disdained all my counsel, And would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes, When your terror comes like a storm, And your destruction comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you.

Solomon. Proverbs 1:24-27. Hi, it’s Nathan, and this is day 11 of ANOTHER 30 Days of Wisdom. Chilling truth. Haunting words. It’s certainly not a picture of God celebrating with raucous laughter our defeat at our own hands. That’s not like him.

This is, in fact, a personification of regret—wisdom getting the last laugh, the last jab. I still remember putting my shiny new smartphone in my shirt-pocket, just before getting on my bike, warning lights flashing. If you go over a jump—that phone’s going to fly out of your pocket. Nah, I told myself, I’ll remember NOT to go over a jump this time. Five minutes later I was picking up my brand-new phone which had flown from my pocket and landed screen-first on the gravel. How quickly I’d thrown caution to the wind. And paid the price. As you can tell, I still remember that careless disregard of wisdom. Thankfully, that was just a phone. And it was insured. More often, the stakes of life a far higher. A moment’s disregard of wisdom can mean a lifetime of pain, for ourselves and others. And a lifetime of regret—wisdom, in a sense, returning to cruelly mock our foolishness. To laugh at the idiot we made of ourselves. Such is the solemn warning of the wiseman. No doubt he’d experienced the mocking voice of wisdom himself—and so he kindly warns the reader of the inevitable cause-and-effect, should we fail to heed her words. We may do as we please, but we cannot outrun the effects of evil, nor avoid the mocking cry of wisdom spurned.