Pondering Proverbs – Discipline (16)

 

 

“Understanding is a foundation of life to one who has it, but the discipline of fools is folly.” Proverbs 16:22.

 

The world says, “Knowledge is power,” but the godly in Christ Jesus seek understanding and knowledge for their goodness, truth, and beauty in Him. Those in Christ Jesus know that all power resides in Almighty God, and that those who set themselves up as gods will lose their souls.

 

What does the image of a “fountain of life” convey to you?

 

When we think of Ponce de Leon’s quest for the Fountain of Youth we may wonder at the futility and foolishness of his quest, after all, shouldn’t he have known that there was no such thing? And yet, what is it that so many in this world are seeking? Power? Youth? Their best life now? Are they not seeking “life” in its various forms and ways – ways that appeal to them, that speak to them, that promise them something that meets a need or hunger or desire within them? Shouldn’t we all know better than to seek the false promises and allurements of the world? Can’t we look around us and see the bottom – line futility of seeking and grasping at things and positions and the opinions of others that are here today and gone, sooner or later, tomorrow?

 

And even when we ponder nobler ideals among us, altruistic ideals and ways of living, can we not see that these higher ways of living and thinking have their origins elsewhere than within ourselves? The very concept of them being “higher” contains this truth, for where would such a concept come from, a concept that others outside of our individual selves acknowledge? Where does this awareness of the “outside of ourselves” come from? The tragedy here is that we usually refuse to acknowledge that these ideals must flow from headwaters beyond ourselves, and so we suppress the knowledge of God – denying Him, and in denying Him denying ourselves, and in denying ourselves shutting ourselves off from salvation and healing and wholeness in Jesus Christ.  

 

We are thirsting for that satisfying and thirst – quenching drink. We look for it in cars and houses and bank accounts and investments and in careers and the accolades of others, in low golf scores or high batting averages or record touchdowns or in the way we look, or in political or social or military power. There is a deceiving drink for all of us, if we try one drink and it doesn’t satisfy us there are plenty more to choose from.

 

Sadly, much of the professing church has become a purveyor of the world’s soda fountain, or even a tiki bar. We are like one of those drink machines that allow you to choose between dozens of drinks, just put some ice in your cup and press a few times on the smart screen and you will get what you want. The problem with getting what you want is that you will be thirsty again, and again, and again.

 

But O dear friends, Ponce de Leon wasn’t entirely crazy, he just didn’t know where to look, because as Proverbs 16:22 tells us, there is indeed a “fountain of life.” There is an “understanding” which clarifies our vision and finetunes our hearing and leads us to drink from the True and Everlasting fountain of life.

 

We are all like the woman at the well in John Chapter 4, all of us have wells that we have been taught to draw from; it may be money or power or position, or education or fame or recognition, or the pleasures of food and drink and houses and cars…there are so many many wells around us – and it seems people are always inventing new ones for us to sample, or repackaging old wells in new ways.

 

Yet Jesus says, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

 

Jesus continues, “…whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up [like a fountain!] to eternal life.”

 

Later in John’s Gospel (6:35) Jesus says, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”

 

The understanding that is a fountain of life is the understanding that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. It is the understanding that leads us to follow Jesus Christ as our Lord, turning from ourselves and our ways to Him as our Way and Truth and Life.

 

Our desire to be more than we are, our appetite to fill the holes in our souls, our hunger, our thirst, all of these things speak to us of the One True Fountain of Life, that One Fountain which alone can satisfy our hunger and quench our thirst. Let us not be satisfied with food and drink, in whatever form, which cannot give us lasting satisfaction; let us not be content with illusory narratives about who we are, nor let us be seduced into thinking that we are accidents looking for a place to happen so we might as well live in the moment.

 

As those created in the image of God, let us find the redemption and restoration of that image in Jesus Christ and learn to drink of that Fountain that will abundantly fill us to overflowing from now into eternity – for we were indeed created for the eternals.

 

What fountain are we drinking from today?