Faith Venture

You probably are about my age if you remember when Ricky Nelson sang, “Poor little fool, oh yeah, I was a fool, uh huh.”

Success (and happiness) in life does not require being a genius. It begins with not being a fool.

We can turn to one of my favorite documents in the Hebrew scriptures—we call it the Book of Proverbs. The writers describe the difference between the wise person and the foolish person.

Let’s consider a sample of descriptions of a fool.

• A fool repeats folly. “ (Proverbs 26:11)
• A fool lacks common sense. (Proverbs 10:21)
• A fool avoids the wise. (Proverbs 15:12) 
• A fool pursues elusive dreams. (Proverbs 17:24) 
• A fool is proud and arrogant. (Proverbs 21:24)
• A fool despises wisdom. (Proverbs 23:9) 
• A fool starts fights. (Proverbs 18:6)
• A fool is easily upset. (Proverbs 12:16)
• A fool believes everything he reads. (Proverbs 14:15)
• A fool loves to talk, but hates to listen. (Proverbs 18:2)
• A fool is fiercely independent. (Proverbs 28:26)
• A fool makes light of sin. (Proverbs 10:23)
• A fool hates their mama. (Proverbs 15:20)

I’m guessing that you, like me, find yourself at least partially described at sometime in life by one or more of these descriptions. Shall we take a lesson from these? We exercise our self-awareness. When we see ourselves exhibiting one of these characteristics, we breathe deeply and divert ourselves into a more wise path.

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This entry was posted on November 7, 2025 at 5:13 am and is filed under Wisdom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.