“While I was at the window of my house, looking through the curtain, I saw some naive young men, and one in particular who lacked common sense.” Proverbs 7:6-7 NLT
Wisdom, personified as someone looking out of the window of their house, sees young men. I don’t know what kind of neighborhood wisdom lived in but wow, she could look out and see some solicitation happening right across the street!
She sees young men and specifically the one who lacked common sense. What she saw was one of the four words the wisdom writers use for “fool.” Did you know there were four Hebrew words for fool? 1. Keciyl- stupid or silly, 2. Pethiy- seducible or simple, 3. Eviyl- perverse, and 4. Nabal- wicked (for more – bit.ly/biblefool).
Here the word “naive” in other translations is “simple” and yep, you guessed it, the seducible kind. I totally believe that wisdom looks out and sees this in some young men.
However, I’ve seen a lot of “simple” men (not just young) in my life. I used to think these were men who had horrible-to-none father figures, but some had/have great Dads and they just want to be knuckleheads.
I look out my own window and see plenty! I see young men race through neighborhoods, not caring about young children darting out in the street. I hear young men “sharing” their over-driven, expensive, testosterone fueled stereos leaving car alarms blaring and windows shaking. I see really expensive cars, all customized and tricked out with all the bling that could have gone into a ring for their girl. I see prison tats and angry death-glares as they swagger down our street scoping out a score or peeing spray paint to tag a neighbors wall. I hear f-bombs dropped as they talk to their woman and illegitimate children in tow. Oh, I see and hear a lot of vibrato, but I do not see men or maturity. I see fools.
I drive though my city and see young boys, preschoolers walking with their moms. They are as cute and as innocent as can be. I pray they don’t grow up to be fools, but I also know about the vicious cycles of a macho culture that will leave them with few choices to follow wisdom.
My heart breaks. I, like wisdom herself, want to call out and beg them not to be seduced by all the evils of this world, all the easy opportunities to just grow up mirroring what they saw in their own estranged father.
These stories of the simple do not turn out well. The wisdom writers, speaking of the temptress, say, “Her house is the road to the grave. Her bedroom is the den of death.” Honestly, sex isn’t the only seduction – power is just as tempting. And young men who figure out “to be feared, is to be powerful,” mistake the real purpose of power. Real men, wise, mature men, know that real power is to protect the weak, not intimidate them. And real men know that sex is not love. Sex is given, received and experienced in a lifetime bond of commitment and sacrifice to one woman; and to make kids that grow up secure, protected, and wise to love God & others.
PRAYER:
Dad,
I would never have figured out how to be a man if you had not found me and rescued me from a cycle of chaos. You pulled me out of generations of some good-hearted but weak, simple men trying to be fathers in my life. Of course, Ben, dad #3, wasn’t kind at all he was a Nabal kind of fool – wicked and conniving to his core. Thank you for wisdom. Thank you for discipline of character. Thank you for being a great Dad!