Alicia's Bible Blog
Proverbs 1:24-26 "Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, and you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when panic strikes you".
Solomon is relaying Wisdom's words to us, including this question, which made me snicker: "How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?" (Proverbs 1:22).
Wisdom is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and when personified in the Bible is thought of as the Spirit, so we can hear these words as God speaking to us and really get a sense of His frustration with us! It sounds so much like us talking to our kids when they refuse to listen! Not that most of us would laugh at our children's calamity, or mock them in their panic, but this Jeff Foxworthy joke comes to mind: "When I was a kid, my parents had a 900-pound television on top of a TV tray. My dad's theory was, 'Let him pull it over his head a few times, he'll learn.'
Of course, this was a joke, a child's injury would not be funny. But Jeff was laughing about the same frustration the Holy Spirit is voicing here. Sometimes we are so pig-headed and simple that we have to be allowed to experience the consequences of what we insist on doing despite all the warnings of Wisdom. God expects us to be wiser than children, we should know of His counsel and take His outstretched hand. And we have to admit we sometimes feel what the Holy Spirit is referring to here. When people ignore the advice we are trying to give them for their own safety and well-being, when they won't take our outstretched hand, we can be tempted to laugh when the TV falls on their head.
Let's not push God to the point of being tempted to laugh at our calamity. We are not simple, but we often act simply. We ignore God's Word, and the advice and counsel of wise men and women like the saints. We bring ourselves to the point where the only way we will learn if is if God lets us pull the TV down on ourselves. Then, even if God is not actually laughing at us, we can understand why He might be tempted to, and imagine that we would be laughing if we were in His shoes!
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