A Woman's Wisdom: How the Book of Proverbs Speaks to Everything (13 page)

This “training of responses” is how wisdom is lived out and how we become characterized as women of wisdom. We’re going to consider how to handle our emotions wisely by looking at two particular emotions—anger and grief—and in doing so, we’ll get an idea of how the wisdom of Proverbs can be harnessed for the whole spectrum of our emotions.

Anger

Some anger is good. After all, Jesus got angry with those who abused temple practices for greedy gain (Matt. 21:12–13). But we are not Jesus. I once heard a wise pastor say that this side of glory we will never experience fully righteous anger. We just aren’t capable of it, since everything about us is sin-tainted. But that doesn’t mean that all the anger we experience is wrong or that we should never get angry. After all, Paul wrote, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph. 4:26), and Brian Chapell writes:

A woman seeking to grow in wisdom is increasingly able to live out Paul’s instruction, and Proverbs provides us with a way to do so. We learn from Proverbs that anger governed by wisdom includes self-restraint:

In fact, when it comes to anger management, being “slow to anger” is advised repeatedly in Proverbs (10:11; 14:29; 15:18; 16:32), more so than any other approach to this powerful emotion.

Elsewhere Solomon wrote, “Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools” (Eccles. 7:9). Here he not only reinforces what he wrote in Proverbs, but he adds this piece about anger that festers. This is the sort of anger that gets stuck in our hearts. We can’t stop thinking about it; we toss and turn at night, rehearsing the cause of our anger over and over in our minds. We can’t stop talking about it; we vent our rage to others, or we post it in an anonymous comment in all capital letters on a blog. Anger that is easily come by and that takes up residence in our hearts indicates the presence of folly (sin). It is being angry
with
sin rather than angry
without
sin.

Getting a handle on our angry emotions can be very difficult, especially when our anger seems justified. So how do we do it? Proverbs does provide us with some concrete steps, but, even more importantly, it reveals an overarching principle: we don’t become wise by employing anger management techniques—even those provided in Proverbs. Managing our anger isn’t something we do; it’s something we become. It’s actually the fruit of wisdom.

We also see there that overlooking a wrong—giving it a free pass and simply letting it go—is commendable, such as when your spouse or friend or colleague said something insensitive to you or misjudged your motive or gave credit to someone else for something that you did. Isn’t it true that most of our anger comes from feeling slighted, disrespected, or not given our due? How often do we get our hackles up because Jesus has been slighted, disrespected, and not given
his
due? Chances are that there is disproportion there in all our hearts.

Of course, there are times when overlooking an offense is a cop-out. Confrontation is unpleasant, and often we fear its outcome. But when God’s name is dishonored, or when a Christian persists in unrepentant sin, or when someone demonstrates repeated disregard for the welfare of others, overlooking the offense might be more foolish than wise for all involved.

Grief

Another emotion that we find very difficult to manage is grief. When we are in the midst of a season of sorrow, there are times when crushing feelings of grief just rise up seemingly out of the blue and overtake us. Certainly there is nothing unwise about grief—it’s just part of being human, as
Proverbs says:

Precisely because grief crushes the spirit, we and those around us profit when we learn how to handle it biblically. First, we ought to note that Proverbs does not engage in personal grief counseling. Its approach is more about cultivating in us an awareness of the feelings of others. We can say, therefore, that, according to Proverbs, wise women are intuitive about others’ pain.

In terms of handling our own grief, we can learn a good bit about that from King David. There came a point in David’s reign when his son Absalom turned on him and sought to kill him in order to obtain David’s throne for himself. He gathered a band of renegades and sought to carry out terrorist attacks against his father the king and the royal army. Can you imagine the hurt David felt? His own child wanted him dead. Wealthy parents probably taste a bit of what David felt if, as they age, their children express little interest in their well-being but a lot about what’s in
their will.

For a season, David’s life was in danger, but in the long run, Absalom’s gang was no match for the king, who sent his army to stop the uprising led by his son. As the army prepared to head into battle, David issued this request: “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom” (2 Sam. 18:5). We see there a father’s heart: no matter that his son wanted to kill him, David wanted his son’s life spared. But that’s not how it worked out. The army had no compunction about slaying Absalom; they had the welfare of the entire kingdom to think about, not just the king’s feelings. Absalom was killed in the battle, and when word reached David that his son was dead, he cried, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Sam. 18:33).

Despite Absalom’s betrayal, David was overcome with grief when he received word of his son’s death. If you are a parent, surely you can resonate with David’s response. We all can, for that matter, because the death of a loved one, even when (perhaps especially when) the relationship has been fractured before the death, is heartbreaking. The presence of powerful emotions such as grief is not a matter of wisdom or the lack thereof; but how we handle those emotions has everything to do with it. David’s response discouraged those who had risked their lives
for him:

As word of David’s grief spread dishearteningly throughout the city, David’s advisor Joab came and rebuked
the king:

Joab’s words penetrated David’s grief, and he got himself together for the sake of his people. Nevertheless, we have in David an example of emotions run amok. Both his love for his son and his grief at his death were poorly contained, and his failure to “rule his spirit” (Prov. 16:32) had rippling consequences. Arthur Pink writes, “The excessive indulgence of any passion (grief by no means excepted), not only offends God, but betrays men into great imprudences in their temporal concerns.”
⁶

Therefore . . .

Considering all this in light of Proverbs’ emphasis on being in tune with the feelings of others, we can summarize the wisdom of emotional restraint as “giving free reign to emotions only to the extent that doing so brings no harm to people or dishonor to God’
s name.”

desires

Our desires—the things we want—tend to govern our lives and our choices. For that reason, it is important that our desires get formed in a biblical mold. Right now, today, we all desire something. It might be a desire we’ve carried in our heart for years, or perhaps it’s more recent. It might be something that springs from our feminine nature—a husband, a child, a home of our own. Some of us desire healing, either for an illness or for a relationship. It might be a desire for a major change, such as a different job or a relocation. It could be something simpler such as a break in the routine by means of two weeks at the beach or just by getting out of the kitchen for a night or two. It is to be hoped that above all our desires, we desire God himself.

Sometimes the way in which we describe a particular desire is merely our attempt to give shape to some deeper yearning in our hearts that we cannot name. Our desire for marriage, home, and family, for example, may be how we give expression to our longing for love, belonging, and the banishment of loneliness. No matter the specifics of our desires or how we express them, all our longings are indicative of the fact that we aren’t home yet. We are unfinished women living in an unfinished world, and because of that, we aren’t going to find full satisfaction until we get home, until we are perfected in Christ and living with him in heaven. Until then, we are going to remain women
who want.

Many of the things we desire are hardwired into us. God designed us to want home and family and to be fed and clothed and sheltered; and there is nothing wrong with these desires. The problem is that we tend to want them too much. When that happens, good desires get warped into slave masters. We are enslaved to any desire that we believe we must have in order to be content. For that reason, we do well to consider what Proverbs says about our desires.

Proverbs distinguishes between good desire and bad, and between good, better, and best, and it puts wisdom at the forefront of desirable acquisitions.

What the Word of God is telling us here is that no matter how worthwhile our desires, nothing will prove as rewarding and satisfying as the obtainment of wisdom. Since this is true, you’d think we would set our passions to work on laying hold of it much more than we do. If we craved wisdom as much as we do things and relationships and success, we’d be much more contented than we often are. It is God’s will to provide us with wisdom, whereas it may not be in his plan to give us any number of the other things on which we set our hearts, which is what accounts for most discontentment.

In fact, it might actually be that God withholds something we want because our desire for it is so intense that having it would prove harmful to us. David Powlison says, “Our desires for good things seize the throne, becoming idols that replace the King. God refuses to serve our instinctive longings, but commands us to be ruled by other longings. What God commands, He provides the power to accomplish.”
⁷
So the first thing we learn about desires from Proverbs is that the best desire—and the one we are guaranteed to get—is wisdom.

Proverbs does indeed indicate that when our desires are aligned with God’s truth, we can be much more confident about his
providing them:

The psalmist said it this way: “Delight yourself in the L
ORD
, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4).

Proverbs is also tuned into the
power
of desires:

Consider the contrast in that last proverb (13:19). It is likely that, at some point, all of us have tasted the sweetness of a dream come true. Fools, however, taste sweetness in giving themselves to sin. But it is a temporary fulfillment at best and never sweet
for long.

Proverbs also gives us insight into what happens when we allow our desires to rule our lives:

Described here is someone who is so set on pursuing what she desires that she won’t listen to others’ advice or guidance. Over time, she begins to avoid anyone who might challenge her pursuit of what she wants, and eventually she is likely to find that those naysayers were right all along. We see this proverb played out every day, often in ungodly romantic entanglements.