I Will Choose Wisdom

Choosing a good year is the name of our January series. Choosing a good year because this year stuff will happen. Stuff that you don't like, stuff that you didn't choose, stuff that you don't want, stuff you didn't plan for, stuff that irritates you, stuff completely out of your control, but you still have a choice. You have a choice about how you're going to enter this year, how you're going to react to all those unpredictable events that happen this year, and those choices that you make are going to change your experience of the year, no matter what happens.

If you've been joining us for the series, you'll recall just kind of a quick recap. Week one was about I will choose humility. I'm not going to be a know-it-all. I'm going to be able to learn this year. And then second, I will choose my story was week two. And we talked about how the same people, two different people, can have the same exact kinds of events happen to them. Bad events, even tragic events. And one person looks at those events and writes them into a contamination narrative. Yep, here it goes again. My life's just getting contaminated by all these bad events. You know, I'm just a bad-looked person or God has it in for me or life just is terrible and they can descend into cynicism.

Or they can choose to work those same events into what we called a redemption narrative and say, "You know what? These things are bad, but God is going to use them to change my character and he's going to use them in the world and God's writing a story that I'm a part of." And then week three, last week we talked about I will choose growth. How we can choose at any event that's going to happen to us this year and say, "This event, I don't want it. And it may even be a tragedy. It may technically be bad news, but I'm going to choose to see it as a way for my character to grow." Right?

And so today what I'm going to talk about is a choice that you're going to be able to make every single time you face a decision in the new year. And if you ask the question that I am about to teach you before you make every single decision in 2022, it will be a better year for you than if you did not ask this question that I'm going to teach you right now. It'll be a better year no matter what else happens. I guarantee that. That's so important. This next choice is. So grab your message notes. And if you're joining us online, you can download these at tlc.org/notes.

And let me start with a bumper sticker that I saw the other day that I thought was so profound. Excuse me. Oatmeal. The bumper sticker said, "Everything happens for a reason." Sometimes the reason is we're stupid and we do dumb stuff, right? Ever asked yourself, "Why do we do dumb stuff?" Right? Why do people do dumb stuff? I've got a book, one of my favorites, called "The 176 Stupidest Things Ever Done." And the problem, of course, with a book with that title is as soon as it's out, it's already outdated, because we as humans are constantly adding to that list every single day.

But here are just a couple of examples that kind of cracked me up. True. All these are true. R.V. D'Artagnol of de Ritter, Louisiana was foiled in his bank robbery attempt because he forgot to cut eye holes in the black plastic garbage bag he was using as a disguise. So he couldn't find the door out of the bank. In another robbery, Bob Coleman had a slightly different problem. He could see through his plastic garbage bag disguise. The problem is, so could everybody else, because he had chosen a transparent bag to wear over his head. He was quickly apprehended.

Here's another one. Kind of tragic, but there was a guy in Florida who entered a contest to see who could eat the most live cockroaches. Why would you enter a contest like that? Well, the winner would get a live python. He won, but he choked on the roaches. And you have to wonder what part of that seemed like a good idea. Why do we do dumb stuff? Raise your hand if you have ever done anything dumb in your life. It's unanimous. Post it online. Say, "Yes, I have done dumb stuff." If you've done dumb stuff.

So let's talk just for a few minutes about how not to do as much dumb stuff this year. Let's not raise the bar too high, right? We know we all know we can't eliminate it, but can we just not do as much dumb stuff? I'm going to talk about the key to that, and I'm really going to be basing this message on the great book by Andy Stanley that came out recently called Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets. A lot of our small groups are studying this. This book kind of inspired this series, and I haven't been tying into it that closely in the first three weeks, but this week I'm really going to tie into his content because I think he does such a great job of addressing the issue that I'm addressing with you this morning.

He says, for example, when we make decisions, when we're deciding whether or not we're going to do something, in our culture, and see if you agree with us, see if you do this yourself, in our culture we tend to ask these four questions. First, is it legal? Right? Is this thing legal? And if it's legal, then we kind of think it's OK. Is drinking this legal at my age? Is smoking this legal? Is gambling on this legal? Is yelling my neighbor covered by free speech? Is it legal to try to win a python in a cockroach eating contest? You know, is it legal?

Second, is it sinful? At least Christians tend to go here. Is it specifically prohibited in the Bible? Is there a command against this specific thing? Is there a command against? What does the Bible have to say about eating bugs? Well, it turned out John the Baptist lived off locusts, so it must be God's will for me to enter the cockroach eating contest. And then third, we ask, is it acceptable? And what I mean by this is, is it culturally acceptable? Are people around me going to say, "Yeah, that's totally cool. You should go ahead and do that because it's legal. It's not prohibited specifically in Scripture, and it's acceptable."

This one is the one where a lot of teenagers go. At least I know I did, right? Did you? But everybody's doing it. Everybody's talking this way. Everybody's acting this way. Everybody's dressing this way. And that is how, in my day, we ended up walking around looking like this. Does anybody remember these fashions? Anybody remember crochet sweater vests? Anybody remember polyester plaid leisure suits? Anybody wear any of these clothes items in your day? I love it. She's pointing to her husband. He did, not me.

So let me ask you, is this legal? Yes. Is it sinful? Probably. It should be. There's some verse about this. So we ask, is it legal, sinful, acceptable? And finally, these days, is it authentic? Is it authentic to me? And this is the question that you're hearing more and more people asking in our culture. You know, I just want to be authentic. You know, I'm just living my truth. Right? Like, I need to vent right now and tell you what I don't like about you because I just live in my truth. You may not like it, bro, but I'm just being authentic. And so people are being authentic all over each other.

Right? Because we have what you could call an unexamined assumption in our culture. If it passes this kind of four-point checklist, then it must be OK for me to do. After all, you'll hear people say, there's no law against it. I'm not doing anything wrong according to scripture because you can't show me specifically where this is prohibited. I'm not hurting anybody. So it's cool if I'm not doing anybody harm right this second. I can handle it. God will forgive me even if I'm making a mistake right now. God will forgive me. So I'll just go ahead and do it.

And here's the thing. These excuses are very persuasive because mostly they're true. Right? In many cases, maybe most when you're making a decision, it isn't illegal. And you are technically doing anything wrong morally according to scripture yet, at least. And you can handle it initially, at least. And it doesn't appear that you're harming anybody except maybe yourself. And certainly God will forgive you. But are those really the right questions to ask? Is it possible for something to be legal and not technically sinful and totally culturally acceptable and absolutely authentic and completely true to who you are and still be dumb?

Like Andy Stanley says in his book, "Bet you didn't set the bar this low for your kids or anybody that you love." You know, you're not going to say to your own kids, "Son, your mother and I want you to drive as fast as the law allows." We expect you at the party tonight to drink right up to that legal blood alcohol limit. In fact, we want you to reach that limit every single time. Make that your goal. Make your mother and I proud in that cockroach eating contest.

This is what we do often ask. Is this bad? Is this okay? Is this what I want to do? That's what we ask. What we should ask is, is it wise? Say that out loud with me. Is it wise? Say it again. Is it wise? Yes, I can enter the cockroach eating contest, but say it. Is it wise? Yes, I can post that angry comment on Nextdoor, but is it wise? Yes, I can indulge in that vice. It is legal, but say it. Is it wise?

The Apostle Paul spells this out. Today I'm going to look at verses from Paul and from Proverbs, and they're all in your notes. Paul wrote to some very early Christians, and I love this because it shows you that technology might change and so on, but human nature does not change because he's writing to these early Christians in a city in Greece called Corinth, and his initial letter to them is in our Bibles as 1 Corinthians. And in his letter, he quotes some people in the church who are using this exact logic to decide whether or not to do stuff in their lives. This could have been written yesterday.

He quotes them. "I have the right to do anything," you say. Yeah, but not everything is beneficial. Say that word out loud with me. Beneficial. That means good for you. Sure, you could do it. It's not specifically prohibited in scripture. It's legal and it's true to yourself and it's culturally acceptable, but is it good for you? Like, you know, Captain Crunch cereal. It is legal. It is not sinful. It is culturally acceptable and very true to me, believe me. But if I ate Captain Crunch as often as I want Captain Crunch, I would look like Captain Crunch. It's beneficial.

And he goes on, "I have the right to do anything." Again, he's quoting the people in the church. "But I will not be," what? "Mastered by anything." Here's what I want to suggest you do. Every time you feel that you're self-being lured to do something, I want you to look at that thing and say, "I will not be subjugated by you." Subjugated means, you know, made a slave to you. "I will not be subjugated by you." No matter what it is you want to do. Say that out loud with me. "I will not be subjugated by you." Because anybody know anybody addicted to stuff that's legal? And maybe anybody know anybody who's addicted to stuff that's not even a drug. But they're subjugated. They're mastered. They're controlled by shopping, gaming, chocolate. Somebody said chocolate. With some enthusiasm there. Yeah.

Or, you know, internet conspiracy theories or whatever. You need to say to whatever you feel luring you, "I will not be mastered by you." And then Paul says a little bit later in the same letter, he says, "I have the right to do anything." Yeah, but not everything is what? Constructive. He's like, "Well, what is this building into your life? Everything you do is taking you one step further down some road in some direction. Is it going somewhere good?" Quoting Andy Stanley again, "Just because there isn't a thou shalt not doesn't mean thou shalt." Does that make sense? Just because there isn't a thou shalt not doesn't mean thou shalt.

So to avoid adding to the frustrations that life will throw at you this year, life's going to throw you curve balls this year, right? So why contribute to that with our own idiocy? To avoid adding to the hardships of this year with your own choices. Ask of every invitation, every opportunity, every option that comes your way. What is the wise thing for me to do? If you miss everything else from this message today, I want you to memorize this sentence, this question. So say this out loud with me right now. What is the wise thing for me to do? Just asking, "Is this okay?" Or, "Well, do I want to do this?" Or, "Is this bad?" That's setting a pretty low bar. Ask what's the wise thing for me?

Paul writes to the Christians in Ephesus. This is a great passage, Ephesians 5 starting in verse 15. Be very careful then how you live. He's just saying don't be careless. Not as unwise, but as what? As wise. He's saying this right here, that's the grid through which we're to evaluate every invitation, every opportunity. What's the, say it again. What's the wise thing for me to do? And then he continues with a bit more explanation. He says, "Making the most of every opportunity." Literally in the original Greek that phrase can be translated redeeming or ransoming the time. Redeeming or ransoming the time.

I love that phrase because don't you wish, just think about this for just a second, don't you wish you could go back in your own life and reclaim or redeem all the time wasted due to bad decisions? Just think for just a moment. I know it's hard and tough and awkward and uncomfortable, but think for a minute about just the wasted time in your life making and recovering from unwise choices. I know it's painful, but I'm asking you to do that because it's necessary in order to appreciate the invitation embedded in Paul's verse here, because here's what he's doing. Paul is inviting you. Paul is inviting us to invest our time wisely from this moment forward.

From this day forward, you're being invited in this verse to redeem or ransom or make the most of your most valuable assets, which is your time. To invest your time in a way that actually propels you forward toward a preferred future. And listen, this is why this is not a nagging bad dog, you should do better with your life kind of a message. I don't want you to hear it that way. This is a message of hope because what this message means is no matter what your past, no matter how old you are, no matter how young you are, you can choose wisdom this year. It's a message of hope because what he's saying is you don't have to keep doing the same stuff.

This means that you are not doomed to just rinse and repeat. You can learn, you have hope, you can change, you can grow and redeem the time from this moment forward. And of course, you can redeem the time because God takes even past mistakes and he can never even rewrite the narrative around those mistakes, rewrite plan A and turn them into something that you learn from and grow through. So Paul says, you know, let's redeem the time, let's make those wise choices initially. But Paul is not through because then he tacks on kind of this odd warning. He writes this, "Because the days are," what? Evil. The days are evil.

Now, what's he mean by that? Well, you know this. As Andy Stanley puts it in his book, we don't live in a morally neutral culture, do we? I mean, think about it. When's the last time you heard or saw or even read an advertisement that encouraged you to be wise, that encouraged you to be self-controlled? I'm guessing maybe never. I mean, as a sales associate at some store ever suggested, you know, I think you should go home and think about it for a couple of days before you make this purchase. Probably not. And this is Paul's point, live as not as unwise but as wise.

His point is this is on us because we're not going to get any help from our culture when it comes to making wise choices. He's saying, imagine this round table here as like the earth or the moon. And it represents it metaphorically represents our culture. He's saying the kind of the gravitational pull of our culture is always going to be toward foolishness and not wisdom, right? It's always going to be now, not later, more, not less, indulge, not restrain. And that's why this fourth choice in our choosing a good year series may be the most important choice of them all because we need to resist our culture's trend toward foolishness.

And why it's so important not to ask is it culturally acceptable? Is it okay? Is this new weird vice, you know, specifically prohibited in Scripture? Why it's so much more important, so much more ground is covered by just asking one question, is it wise? Habitually asking that question. In fact, in his book, Andy Stanley suggests that you ask this question from three perspectives, your past, your present, and your future. Your past, your present, and your future.

For example, number one, what's wise right now based on my past experience? Based on my own personal past experience, what would be the wise move for me? Now I imagine you're familiar with the little quip that goes, those who can't remember the past are condemned to repeat it, right? Well, on a personal level, it could be restated this way. Those who don't pay attention to what got them into trouble yesterday are liable to wind up in the same trouble tomorrow. And the Bible puts it pretty graphically in Proverbs 26:11, it says, "Like a dog that returns." You know what? Here's what I want us to read this verse out loud together because this verse has probably never been in a responsive reading in church in the history of Christianity. So let's read this out loud together like a dog that returns to its vomit. "A fool does the same foolish things again and again."

Why is this verse so gross? You may not know that scholars almost universally agree that the book of Proverbs was originally written centuries and centuries and centuries ago as an ethical instruction manual to teenage males. Did you know that? To young teenage men about how to live their lives and what gets the attention of junior high and high school men? Gross stuff. And so the author is phrasing it this way, but you can see his point, right? Based on your past experience. We all do dumb stuff, but you don't, that's kind of like, you know what? You get a pass on making a mistake once in a while, obviously, but you don't have to keep going back and learning the same lesson over and over and over and over and over again.

The point being our past, our personal, you know, history, listen to me, it predisposes us to certain blind spots, certain weaknesses, certain temptations, tendencies, addictions, right? Temptations, addictions, blind spots, tendencies, addictions that may not be temptations, weaknesses, blind spots, tendencies, addictions to anybody else but you. And that doesn't matter. Just be honest with yourself. Based on your own personal tendencies, weaknesses, addictions, blind spots, tendencies, whatever, what is the wise thing for you to do right now? Every decision, every invitation, every opportunity that comes your way needs to be filtered through that question.

Give you a couple of examples. I have a very good friend, didn't, like most of us, think of himself as somebody with a drinking problem, but one day he and some friends went out and they did this beer tasting event where they sampled a bunch of different kinds of beer. It was a lot of fun, but he didn't really eat a lot of food and it added up and driving home, he gets pulled over, the officer does the sobriety test, my friend's over the limit, and he pays the consequences dearly. Now he's wise and he, first of all, he's glad he was pulled over actually because he's like, "Hey, I could have really hurt somebody and I'm glad I didn't." But now guess what? He has chosen based on his personal past experience that he just doesn't drink anymore.

Drinking is not illegal. Having a beer is not a sin. That may shock some of you, but it's not. It is culturally acceptable. It's very authentic to himself. He likes beer, but based on his past history, it's unwise. And if he made his decision based on, "Well, it's legal, well, it's not specifically prohibited in the scripture," which is the way a lot of people make that choice, "Is it a sin? Well, then I'm just gonna do it." But based on his past history, he's decided it would be unwise for him. But he never tells anybody else they shouldn't. He doesn't judge anybody else. If you go out with him and a group of people, if other people are getting something to drink, he's not going to make a big deal out of it. He'll just order a soft drink. But he has determined it's not wise for him. What is it for you?

Now, that's kind of an obvious one, but let me give you another one that I've discovered in my own life. And I could tell you a lot of different things in my life, but just one example. I love adventure novels that have to do with suspense and people trying to find buried treasure or spies or that kind of stuff. And the more peril the people get into at the end of every chapter, if it's a cliffhanger, I'm gonna love it, right? Well, I read so many academic books and theology books and Bible books that I just love to always have some lightweight fiction book just on the back burner all the time by my bedside. That's nighttime reading for me.

Well, I've discovered that if I read like a couple of those in a row, I'm dreaming that spies are chasing me. I am starting to think to myself, is that car following me home? I'm looking out in my backyard, is there a spy in that tree? What's happening? Oh, it's only a blue jay. I thought it was a spy. It messes with my mind. And I start becoming more anxious. It's a trend. It is a tendency that I have. And so it's like, I cannot read more than two of those things in a row. I read a spy novel. I gotta take a break and read something about animals, you know, a James Harriet story, my all creatures, great and small, something that's kind of like happy like that. I love those.

They're legal. They're not prohibited by scripture. They're culturally acceptable. They sure are authentic to me. I love them. But for me, reading too many in a row would just be unwise. So what is it for you? You know, you can check off these first four boxes pretty quickly. Legal checks, sinful, no check, is it acceptable? Yeah, check authentic check, right? But is it wise based on my past experience? Second, what's wise based on my present reality? What's wise based on my present reality? You really do owe it to yourself and to the people around you to take your current, you know, emotional state, your current state of mind, your current financial state, your current health state into consideration when you're making your choices.

Proverbs 29:11 says, for example, fools give full vent to their anger. There's a lot of that going around these days. But the wise quietly hold it back. Can you relate to something in the Better Questions book? Most of my apologies stem from my propensity to vent in the moment and to the moment. Almost all of the things that I have to apologize for. I've noticed when I wait even a day, my responses are better. They're clearer. They're smarter. And you know what? They're more Christ like. When I'm mad, the legal and acceptable and authentic thing for me to do is it send on that genius post that I've composed on Facebook, you know? Is it send on that email that I emailed that that ridiculous and reasonable person, you know, is demand to see the manager when I've been treated rudely by a clerk or whether that's legal. It's acceptable. It's authentic.

But the wise thing for me to do is nothing according to this scripture. Why do we not learn this lesson? Right? And your present reality also includes your responsibilities. Proverbs 27:23, you should take good care of your sheep and goats. That just means your stuff, right? Because your wealth and honor don't last forever. Based on your present reality, you know, if your car needs new tires or if you own a home and it needs a new paint job, the paint's peeling off or, you know, that's something that you own. This means take good care of your stuff. If your car needs new tires, you probably ought to put new tires on your car rather than just blow on your all your money on something that's not as important. Based on your present reality, what's the wise choice?

What's wise in light of my past experience, in light of my present reality? And third, what's wise for my future hopes? My future hopes. You probably have some idea of what you want your future to look like, right? Some kind of a picture of a preferred future, what it could be, what it should be. Asking the wisdom question with your future in mind brings clarity to whatever option that you're considering. Asking the wisdom question, what's wise? Not what do I want? Not whatever everybody else is doing. Not what's legal, but like what's my preferred future? That brings a clarifying light that just cuts through so much of the decision fog. It's just like, of course, that's the best option or options for me.

The Bible says in Proverbs 14:8, "The prudent understand where they are," what? Where they're going. The prudent are wise. They understand that every decision they're making now is taking them a step in some direction, but fools deceive themselves. They're only kidding themselves when they say, "You know what? I can indulge in this thing. It may not be the best thing for me, but I think I can do this and not have any consequences down the line in any way." In light of where you would like to be, for example, financially, five or 10 years from now, what is the wise thing for you to do now? Just what's legal, acceptable, whatever else. What's the wise thing?

What's true financially is also true relationally. Are your current relationships the kind of people that you're hanging out with, the ways you are hanging out with those people? Is that paving the way toward the kinds of relationships you're going to want to have in the future? In light of what you want later, what's the wise thing to do? Now, another example. If you're married, what can you do right now to facilitate a happy, long-term marriage? May I suggest we have that marriage weekend coming up here at TLC in February. You heard Adrian talk about it. You can get all the details at tlc.org/narrage. It's going to be a great thing. We got a couple of different speakers we're bringing in from outside. We got a Friday night thing, Saturday morning thing you can do both or just choose one. Childcare is available. It's not expensive.

And I heard somebody say something once that really pulled me up short, but it's true. Most married couples over the course of their marriage will spend more money and time on their yard than they do on investing in professional help for their marriage. That doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? It's not wise, and yet that is what we tend to do. So ask yourself, another example is your relationship with your children. Where would you like your relationship with your children if you have kids? Where would you like that to be in the future? Well, what can you do now to ensure that that kind of future or better ensure that that kind of future happens?

Proverbs 27:18, the first part of the verse, I love this verse. So much truth in this. Just think about this for a second. Take care of a tree and you'll eat its fruit. Man, if we just live by that simple idea. In fact, let's say this verse out loud. Take care of a tree and you'll eat its fruit. Now everybody close your eyes and say that verse from memory. Take care of a tree and you'll eat its fruit. You have just memorized a verse that can change your life if you let it. Everybody gets an orchard. Everybody. You have certain talents, you have certain relationships, certain friends, certain skills. Take care of those things. Take care of the orchard. Take care of the assets that you've been given.

Even if there's no immediate payoff, there isn't for somebody who owns an apple orchard and sells the apples to Martinelli's or has a grape vineyard and sells the grapes to Aventner. There's no immediate payoff. But if you take care of those vines, take care of those apple trees, it will pay off. There's going to be a harvest somehow. Harvests are notoriously unpredictable. You can never know exactly how those relationships are going to go. But not taking care of the orchard is a guarantee that the harvest will be worse than if you did take care of it.

So, don't settle for legal. Don't settle for permissible. Don't settle for acceptable. Don't even settle for, "Well, I want to do it." If you do, you will end up living perilously close to regret. You're better than that. You deserve better than that. The people that you love deserve better than that. Instead ask this, and let's say this out loud again. What is the wise thing for me to do? I want to challenge you. For the next seven days this week, when you find yourself facing a choice, any kind of choice this week, just for the next seven days, just kind of think this thought to yourself as you're trying to make that decision.

Don't even ask, "Is this bad? Is this okay? Do I want to do this?" Go higher than that. Don't set the bar that low. Ask yourself for the next seven days, every choice, say it again, "What is the wise thing for me to do?" Again, what is the wise thing for me to do? I pray that if you do this over the next seven days, it eventually becomes a habit for the rest of your life. You don't also pray about this. This is just about your willpower. The Bible says the Holy Spirit will actually empower you and guide you if this is the question you're asking.

Pray about it. I was thinking when I was a high schooler, I don't know what put this into my head, but every morning, I did a lot of foolish stuff, but this was a wise thing that I did. Every morning I would kneel by my bed and I would pray a one sentence prayer, "God, grant me wit and wisdom." And that goes to show that you've heard it before. When you pray, sometimes God says no, but you just have to keep praying, right? No, the Bible says God will always answer that prayer.

Now listen, some of you are going, let me wrap it up this way. Some of you are going, "Yeah, but René, this is confusing because I don't always know the wise thing to do and there's so many options. I don't know what to do. I get that." Let me explain something that to me has been very clarifying. Back to the Apostle Paul. He tells the Colossian Christians in Colossians 3:1, "Since then, you've been raised with Christ." That means he's talking to Christians who believe that Jesus Christ died and was buried and rose again to forgive them of their sins and give them eternal life. And also to give them power to live this life right now.

Christians believe that this is being died and resurrected. It's not just what's going to happen to us in the future. This is a pattern for our lives now. We all have crosses in life. We have crucifixion moments in life. Bad stuff happens, but we can believe that resurrections also happen, that God's going to take every death and turn it into a resurrection. And he's saying, "Since you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above." "Where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." "Set your minds on things above and not on earthly things." Here's the key. Confused about wisdom? Set your mind on. Look to the embodiment of wisdom. And that's Jesus Christ.

He's the embodiment of wisdom. How did he act? How did he respond? Even those who persecuted him? How did he live that self-sacrificial life? If you're confused about all this, look to Jesus. And let me close with a great illustration of this. I showed you guys this back in 2015 when it happened, but it's been seven years and it's so relevant to this point. An eagle is brought to the top of the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

And let me just give you some perspective here. Dubai is four times the size of San Francisco. Some massive city, skyscrapers, very, very vast metropolis. So its trainer puts it up there and then goes down to stand in the middle of a city park, blocks away many stories below in this vast city. They attach a little GoPro or something to the back of the bird so you can see what it's doing. They had trained it to find one small piece of meat on its trainer's gloved hand. A glove that a bird is going to try to find in a city four times the size of San Francisco. And then they release the eagle. How will this bird find its way? In this giant city.

You can see it looking around. Think of all the distractions in sight at this moment, but it is looking for one thing. And you're going to see the instant it sees its master. It tucks in its wings and zooms down. Watch this. What a great analogy for how to find wisdom in a distracting world. You know, the eagle was not going, should I go there? Should I go there? Oh, there's a mouse. There's a mouse. There's a bird. You know, it was, it was looking, looking, looking for one thing. Its master. Eyes focused on the hand of your master, your savior, your Lord Jesus. And in fact, let's look to him right now. I'd love to lead us in a word of prayer. Would you bow your head with me?

Lord, as we pray, we've all been on both sides of this. We have benefited from being wise, but we saw all of us have paid the price for being foolish. We thank you for your forgiveness and we ask for the power to choose wisdom. And specifically, I just pray that everybody listening or watching that this week for the next seven days, you would bring this question to mind and that this then would become a habit for life. What is the wise thing for me to do? And empower us to make that choice. And I pray all of this in the matchless name of wisdom incarnate, Jesus. Amen.