Build Your House – Proverbs 14:1

Whenever we visit our son in Boston we end up driving through the Big Dig, the tunnel portion of I-93, designed to improve traffic flow.  The construction was plagued with cost overruns and time delays.  One company supplying the concrete was found to be using defective concrete.  And a portion of the tunnel fell off and killed a motorist.  It was found that the glue being used was not capable of holding this weight long term.  How you build is crucial.  How you build your home is most crucial.

The wisest of women builds her house,

but folly with her own hands tears it down. (Proverbs 14:1, ESV)

We are often our own worst enemies.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have spoken to individuals who yielded to temptation only to find the grass wasn’t so green as they thought on the other side of the fence and their marriages were crumbling.  I’ve seen individuals who couldn’t seem to bring themselves to tell the truth to their spouses for fear it would cost them their marriage, only to have their secrets found out and the trust of their spouse be irreparably damaged.  Or parents who couldn’t help but turn their relationship with their children into a power-match, gaining the power but losing their children.

Wisdom says if we embrace her we will build our household.  Folly makes a competing call to us, but when we listen to her our house crumbles.  In one sense, this proverb is saying there is little of more importance in life than our “house,” our family, that is.  What we invest there brings more returns relationally than anything else.  What we lose there is more devastating than anything else.

Make the right choices.