Wisdom and a Better Life

Intro

Coach Jimmy Johnson was asked what he told his players, the Dallas Cowboys, just before the 1993 Super Bowl. “I told them that if I laid a 2x4 across the floor, everybody there would walk across it and not fall. because our focus would be on walking the length of that board. But if I put that same board ten stories high between two buildings, only a few would make it, because the focus would be on falling.” He told his players not to focus on the crowd, the media, or the possibility of falling, but to focus on each play of the game as if it were a good practice session. The Cowboys won the game 52-7.

What we focus on matters

if we would focus on the mission, the calling that God has laid before us, then we would not be distracted by all the world has to offer.

Solomon had everything he could desire, yet it became his downfall, because he lost sight of what he should have been focusing on, his call, his mission, to lead God’s people well.

with all the changes that life brings us every day, we must not loose sight of our call, our mission.

we must have focus

Focus (1-4)

What is your focus in life?

a good legacy (name)

Day of death is better than day of birth

birth celebration

death remembrance

legacy, accomplishments, life lived

Many funerals

confronted with our own mortality

better to celebrate a life that was, than to feast and overindulge for no reason

How are we living our lives?

waiting for death to come?

counting the days?

Living in every moment, knowing that soon all can be taken away, so appreciating what you have?

“Most of the time we live as though we were writing a draft for the life which we will live later. We live, not in a definitive way, but provisionally, as though preparing for the day when we really will begin to live. We are like people who write a rough draft with the intention of making a fair copy later. But the final version never gets written. Death comes before we have had the time or even generated the desire to make a definitive formulation”

The injunction, “Be mindful of death” is not a call to live with a sense of terror in the constant awareness that death is to overtake us. It means rather: Be aware of the fact that what you are saying now, doing now, hearing, enduring or receiving now may be the last event of experience of your present life. In which case it must be a crowning, not a defeat; a summit, not a trough.”

How would our conversations and actions change, if we lived as if every moment, every conversation could be our last?

would you share Jesus with that friend, family member?

would you encourage, support, and cheer on, rather than yell and belittle?

“The mind of the wise is on the house of mourning.”

Pride (5-8)

when we change our focus, we must also change our pride

we all love compliments, they uplift us and make us feel good

too many times we dismiss or lash out at criticism

compliments are great, they do have their place

but the emphasis is where you focus your attention

only on compliments, then you can never grow, never learn, your pride will grab you

through criticism, you learn, you adapt, to succeed, and to prosper

“The end of the matter is better than its beginning”

just as it is better to keep our mortality in view, it is better to keep the end our a matter also.

meaning yes how you finish is important!

were you able to hold on to morals, values, beliefs, faith?

when yo seek after compliments and praises of fellow mankind, then you will compromise on something, just to get the desired result

“patient spirit is better than haughtiness of spirit”

pride

Wisdom (9-14)

wisdom teaches us action and directs our heart and mind

Anger

“Don’t act, when you can respond.”

James 1:19 This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;

Proverbs 14:29 He who is slow to anger has great understanding, But he who is quick-tempered exalts folly.

Looking Forward

Always comparing the past to today is useless

today is not the same as yesterday

wisdom teaches that we cannot undo what God has done

he creates and gives prosperity

He also takes it away

He gives times of peace and times of adversity

Wisdom is what leads to a better life

God’s wisdom

Conclusion

Wisdom teaches to acknowledge that life is short

when we realize it, we won’t waste opportunities that are before us

Wisdom teaches that pride leads to downfall

listen to those who try to correct us

Wisdom teaches that life is always changing

from one moment to the next

we cannot change what God has purposed but we can change how we react to it

we cannot know that tomorrow holds

but we can know that God is always there