Good Morning, Proverbs 13 Ladies! 🙂

Oh, I so woke up ready to rip into reading and then writing this piece, even when I didn’t know what it would be about. LOL! I laugh, but it is true!! And I don’t know about you, but I do really love to read GOD’S Word as there is just so much good stuff to be heard! And Proverbs 13 did not let me down. 🙂 And so, let’s get right into what I feel the key concept had to be:

INTENTIONAL INTEGRITY (verses 6 and 9)!

“Say what??!!!” Say YEAH! 🙂

You know, we keep reading that there are “Two ways to GO in Life”: the World’s way and GOD’s Way. And sometimes as we are learning to grow spiritually, we don’t always see the “correct way” clearly. Yup, there is a bit of confusion in which direction would be GODLY because, well, it is all so NEW. We truly are unlearning and relearning old ways while building in better, brighter, bolder ones. But how do you know if you are headed down the correct path?

Well, sometimes I have had to ask myself,

How am I FEELING about myself right now? 

And, you know, there are definitely seasons where I would have easily answered, “Oh, I got me some self-hate and self-SHAME getting on.” And if I do? Sometimes that is a CLUE to the fact that I AM on the wrong path (even if it has been the one I have done for years or is being done by everyone else around me, including my friends and family). 

But I began to THINK through just “WHO” am I to blame for the self-hate and self-shame? Well, you may have guessed it. The answer was in those words: MYSELF and the SELF-HARMING choices I was doing, even when I didn’t even know I was (verse 5).

Does that concept ring, but also STING, as true to you?

Well, it did it to me. BUT it also made me SEE I had a CHOICE. I could resist and have a spiritual fuss, fight and fit on how “MY own ACTIONS couldn’t be it.” (It had to be someone else hurting my world.) Or, I could grow up and own up and ADD in the KEY Leadership Quality and use some??

You guessed it: HUMILITY (verse 10).

YES, that sweet little (not often used) 🙂 word changed my world as I began to be able to look and see through HIS WORD many, many choices and correcting directions for my SOUL to begin to TAKE and to make my self-sabotaging ways, well? DISAPPEAR over TIME.

Truly … totally … completely.

Honestly.

And how did this happen?

Well, let’s break it down in the way it can be found in the BIBLE (always the BEST place for counsel to be heard):

SO, there I was with my new LIFE GOAL to grow in INTENTIONAL INTEGRITY. Or in other words, from my Sunday School days, I just had to keep my “own spiritual nose clean.” (No need to focus on anyone else — THIS was now about ME reflecting on ME!)

And it starts with the KEY step of:

1. ACTION IT: Yup, time to a) get rid of OLD FOOD (aka old worldly, wicked ways, verse 18) and add in some b) SOUL-FOOD (verses 4, 19, 25). We keep seeing a pattern in Proverbs of how these two PATHS will end, so it was far past my time to END doing the old stuff and get really committed to READING about the NEW stuff. Therefore Action 1?? READ GOD’s WORD and GET THAT DONE DAILY, so I could move into step 2.

2. ABSORB IT: Yes! The only way to keep those truths in my heart and MIND was to read them often enough that they begin to absorb into my SOUL (verse 19) so that I could then begin to …

3. APPLY THEM: Oh yes, once they are getting into me, and getting into my SOUL, I can then ask myself, “How could I apply this to MY real life, real Carol Conroy world here in Cranbrook?” Truly, in what way could this CONCEPT CHANGE what I am choosing to DO? Or not DO (verse 15)?? And by asking that question I could then take that NEW option and … 

4. ATTEMPT IT: Ahhhh, time to straight-up begin to TRY something different and new but that I read was “TRUE” (verse 13)! And to choose that over … and over … and over until?? I LEARNED to trust it and could honestly say it was real as I had DONE it enough in my real life. YES! I could now spread it along to others (verse 14) in the next step, which is to …

5. ADVISE IT: Ohhhhh, THIS is the BEST season of all! When you have slowly grown through the other steps, you can BET GOD will bring along someone else  who needs those concepts, and you, yes, YOU, will have in them ready because YOU, yes, YOU, have been working on growing YOUR SOUL so you really do KNOW these concepts as “TRUE and BEST.” You don’t have to “fake it or make it up.” It will just come out because it is NOT a fairy tale you read about; it was a real-life CHOICE and CHANGE you made. And it now becomes a piece of your… 

LEGACY.

And HISTORY.

And all based on

HIS STORY.

And so, whether you use the fancy term of “INTENTIONAL INTEGRITY” or that Sunday-School Phrase that sticks in my head (“Keep your own spiritual nose clean”), it all means the same: AIMING for SPIRITUAL GROWTH. Maybe this is YOUR year to focus on shifting your SOUL onto HIS GREATER GOAL. And if you go for it? The REWARDS (verse 13) really are waiting there, just for you. And I say it because I’ve chosen it, lived it and now know it is TRUE.

And now, I want to challenge you to post a “RIGHTEOUS REWARD” you are feeling in your world. Because like we read in verse 21, ”The righteous are rewarded with GOOD things.” Mine will be the first one up, but so can’t wait to read what you say yours is — today!

Carol 😉