Proverbs 28

Verse 28:5 reminds me of the justice system today:

Evil people are not able to understand justice,
    but those who pursue the Eternal understand it completely.

Today we are overwhelmed by laws and regulations that make almost anything we do possibly be interpreted as illegal. Even with this simple rights and wrongs get mired in legal mumbo-jumbo. Murder has been excused in this nation for so many reasons that today it’s likely you can get away with it. Either the criminal justice system is overwhelmed by laws they can’t enforce them all, so they go after the low hanging fruit like seatbelt violators. Lawyers will find some nuance in the law that will free their client or will have them declared nuts to lessen the punishment.

We ALL need to “pursue the Eternal” to correct this system of unbalanced justice.

Verse 28:6 talks about integrity:

It is better to be a pauper walking in integrity
    than a dishonest man, even if he is rich.

There are two levels here that need to be looked at one is integrity and the other is wealth. For some reason this is often used to say God does not like the rich, heck Jesus even said a rich man getting into heaven is more difficult than threading a camel through the eye of a needle. So God hates the rich! NO!! This is saying it’s better to LIVE with integrity than to be rich WITHOUT it. A rich man with integrity is ok in this equation AND Jesus’ words were finished with the statement “with God all things are possible.” So the rich are not evil and money is nothing more than a rock, the key is do not make it your idol!!

Verse 28:20 reminds me of the lottery and how many pray for it:

A reliable person will not escape blessings,
    but one who wants to get rich quick will not escape trouble.

We always expect God’s blessings to rain down on us like a big lottery win. Heck I got myself in over a half a million in debt expecting it to just get cleaned us as it always has before. I prayed for that lottery win, since before I would get into “deep” debt of maybe $40,000 and something would sell or happen to clean things up. Unfortunately this time I needed to learn that getting rich required more than just winning the lottery or selling something to clean things up.

When all was said and done we cleaned up our debt by reliably nibbling away at it. In the process we learned how to budget and spend within our means. This is following through as we lost our primary income source and had to adjust again.