My son, if sinners entice you, do not con­sent.   Proverbs 1:10

entice– attract to tempt by offering pleasure or advantage.

I feel as though God would be pleased if I dug a little deeper beneath the surface of this Proverb and acknowledged some of the places and some of the things that steer me off course. At this very moment, I am on high alert with my diet. Some time back, I got in the habit of eating quite a bit of pure “junk.”  My justifiable ex­cuse was “I’m too busy to sit down and eat right now. I’ll just grab these cookies and coke for lunch.”

And the sleep factor in this stage of my life is an ongoing battle. Even though I know how important a full night’s sleep is to my health, if I am not paying strict attention, 10 PM turns to 2 AM in a flash.

You and I are the same in that “sinners” are constantly before us begging us to trade ageless wisdom for temporary pleasure. Don’t be discouraged. Half the battle is in the identification of the problem.

God is not ashamed of our human-ness. But on the other side of that coin, He knows what we are capable of and He chooses not to leave us “stuck on stupid.”  We wear wis­dom well when we wear it. So these in­structions are here to help us excel to higher heights and at the same time protect us from sly self-destruction at the hand of a masterful enticer!