“Pay attention and turn your ear to the sayings of the wise; apply your heart to what I teach” (Proverbs 22:17).

Baltan Gracian (a 16th century Jesuit philosopher) wrote, “The wise does at once what the fool does at last.”

Yup.

Experience is a good teacher. But experience is a costly and painful teacher. And, what’s more, personal experience is often not necessary to learn the lessons learned from pain.

There is much in life you don’t have to personally experience in order to learn the lessons from the pain of failure:

• Addictions
• Abuse
• A failed marriage
• A broken family
• A broken friendship

I pray you don’t have to ever personally experience any of these things.

There is much we don’t have to personally experience to learn the lessons from them. The wise learn, not only from their own pain and failures, but from the failures and pain of others. There are some failures we were never meant to experience. There are pains God never meant for us to personally experience.

Be wise. Learn from wisdom. Pay close attention to what wisdom has to teach you. Pay attention to what God is constantly teaching you through his word and through his truth.

How do you do that?

First, pay attention. Look carefully at the people around you. Particularly pay close attention to those who are pursuing God and his righteousness. And then, compare their lives to those who aren’t. Pay attention.

Second, turn your ear to the wise. Listen to those who are living the life you want to live. Give your ear to the wise.

Finally, apply lessons learned from the wise. You will save a lot of heartache for yourself and those you cherish.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you…If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (John 15:18-20).

This is a hard teaching. No one wants to be hated. No one wants to suffer persecution.

We want to be liked. We want to be relevant. We don’t want to be seen as weird.

The thing about this Jesus thing is that if the world was okay, if the world was fine on its own there is no need for a Savior, there is no need for the cross, there is no need for redemption…there is no need for Jesus.

It is because the world is messed up, lost, hurting that God sent Jesus to the world to save the world. After the resurrection, Jesus gave to the messed up, lost, hurting world the church, the body of Christ, so that God can save the world through her.

When the church becomes an ally of a world that is dying, a world that is messed up, a world that is lost, the church gives up her main purpose – to tell the world about the hope of the world, Jesus Christ.

When the church proclaims the truth of Jesus Christ, the church ought not be surprised by the reaction of a world that despises the truth that we are all sinners in need of the Savior. The more we are like Christ, the more the world will treat the church like the world treated Christ.

Church. Stay the course. Proclaim Jesus. There is salvation in no one else. No one comes to the Father except through Christ and Christ alone.

Stay the course. Proclaim Jesus.

“Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Romans 12:12).

Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean one ceases to be human, a creature, a finite being.

Duh! Right? Who doesn’t know that?

It sounds so obvious. But the way many Christians deal with suffering, disease, death, failure makes one think. It’s almost as if some Christians believe that suffering, disease, death, failure are un-Christian. We pray it away. We claim for ourselves promises of well-being. We cherish and pursue success, health, and wealth.

Because we are human, because we are creatures, because we are finite:

• We will suffer
• We will battle disease
• We will die
• We will fail

Being a Christian doesn’t change what we deal with. Being a Christian changes how we deal with it.

Because we are not alone, because suffering, disease, death, and failure never get the last word, because our past does not define us, we “rejoice in hope, are patient in tribulation, and constant in prayer.”

Friends, when we replace “Why is this happening to me?” with “What is God trying to teach me?” it changes everything!

God is at work. God is good. God wants what is best for us. God knows what is best for us.

Trust God. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer.

What is God trying to teach you today?