Proverbs 31

"Show me who your friends are and I'll know who you are.""Don't spend more than you earn.""Be grateful for what you have.""Do your duty - even if there is no reward.""Doing the right thing may be hard, but it's easier than the alternative.""Always wear lipstick.  It will make you feel better.""Anything worth having is worth working...
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Proverbs 30

You've heard a "three wish" joke before.  The jokes follow various formats, but usually go something like this:

Three men are stranded on a deserted island when a lamp washes up on shore.  A genie pops out and offers each man a wish. 

Man #1 wishes to be in Paris, and he is immediately transported to Paris. 

Man #2 wishes to be in New York, and sure enough, he finds himself in NYC. 

Man #3 is now lonely so ...

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Proverbs 29

When I saw this cartoon, I had to laugh, and hopefully you got a chuckle out of it too. If there is one thing this guy in the cartoon will get  it is a “stiff neck." The past five yea...

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Proverbs 28

Does anyone remember the Ford Pinto?

Maybe you owned one.  If so, we're glad you're alive to remember.  Not everyone who drove a Pinto was so fortunate.

Back in the late 60's/early 70's Ford designed and released their entry into the subcompact car market.  And over 2 million people bought one of the three models available.  But then the accidents started happening.   And Pintos started catching on fire or even e...

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Proverbs 27

The neighborhood where I grew up had a lot of kids. 

Randy Dykema - he lived right across the street and was my best friend (on a totally unrelated note, my parents planned to name me Randy until the neighbor's "stole" the name).   

 Sue Wells - she lived next door and she  played baseball with all the boys, and she was better than most of them.

...
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Proverbs 26:17

Dogs vs. cats

In 2018, for the first time the General Social Survey asked people about their pet ownership.  They uncovered some interesting data:

The percent of people who said they were very happy by type of pet owned...

36% of dog owners28% of dog and cat owners 18% of cat owners 32% of people who did not own pets

Now, I find these numbers interesting.  Obv...

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Proverbs 25

When I was a kid we lived in northwest Indiana, right outside of Chicago.  Many days my dad would come home for lunch and ask if I wanted to go to the Cubs game.  If we ate fast and traffic was good we could get there in time for the first pitch (they played a lot of afternoon games because Wrigley Field didn't have lights).  The Cubs weren't any good, so the tickets were plentiful.  Still, with all those trips to see the Cubs, I grew up a Wh...

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Proverbs 24

Growing up as a High School kid I went to a camp in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan called Gitche Gumee Bible Camp. My family only lived 45 minutes away so we would be up there a lot volunteering or going to evening services.  My older brother Tim was one who was always looking for ways to pull pranks on people so the summer he worked at Gitche he would look for ways to prank the “downstate kids."   One Saturday night he convinced me to be apar...

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Proverbs 23

I love Colorado.  Absolutely love it.

Except for one thing.  I am not all that fond of driving in Colorado.  Especially on some of those mountain roads.  Especially on CO 82 between Aspen and Buena Vista.  There are two reasons for that.  

1.  The road gets very skinny in some places and you have to drive far closer to the edge than is appropriate in my estimation.  In fact, in some places it is so skinny that if ...

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Proverbs 22

Proverbs 22 brings us to the end of Solomon's 375 proverbs, although there are more to come. The section ends in the middle of the chapter, verse 16, before introducing a new section entitled "Thirty Sayings of the Wise." 

Read Proverbs 22

In general, this section seems to be thematically about generosity--giving to the poor, oppression of the poor, and what ultimate wealth looks like. There are a few verses that don't align w...

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Proverbs 21

I suppose that if you dug back through anyone's ancestry far enough you might find a person of some significance  somewhere in the family tree.  In my case, that person is James Longstreet, a general who served in the Civil War for the Confederacy.

While Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were the most known of the South's generals,  Longstreet was just beneath them seniority and was a major player.  His legacy, however, was tainted by...

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Proverbs 20

The past five or so months have been difficult for sports fans.  First, the college basketball conference tournaments were cancelled, then March Madness fell victim to the pandemic.  The NBA and NHL seasons were suspended.  Major league baseball was postponed.  All this left viewers with nothing to watch - and nothing to argue about.  (My brother resorted to watching marble racing, and I'm being serious.)  Finally, golf reappeared, and ...

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Proverbs 19

Let's just get right to the point today.

Today's wisdom:

Don't be in a hurry!

That's difficult to hear, especially in today's world. 

Author Richard Swenson wrote this:

"Just take a look at our lives...We send packages via Federal ExpressUse a phone company called SprintManage our finances with QuickenSchedule our appointments in a DayRunnerDiet with ...

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Proverbs 18

Some older readers may recognize the name Paul Harvey.  He was an iconic radio broadcaster made famous by his daily three-minute segments called "The Rest of the Story."  The set-up was simple.  Harvey would tell a familiar story but add an unknown twist at the end. 

For example, he once told of a novel written in 1898 called Futility.  It told the story of a huge, supposedly unsinkable ocean liner called the Titan...

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Proverbs 17

For whatever reason, my wife has always wanted to see a bear.  In person.  In the wild.  Several summers ago we vacationed in the Smoky Mountains and did a lot of hiking – so seeing a bear on her wish list.  We found a few animal prints in some mud that we were pretty sure were bear tracks, but we never saw a bear.

So you can imagine her disappointment when the other day she heard someone talking about his recent visit to the Smokies and ...

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