Pushing Boundaries

Introduction

We are back in our series called Sophia Street, going through selected proverbs each week and exploring how God’s wisdom leads us to life in Christ.

I’ve often seen the book of Proverbs described as a collection of sayings that are there to help people live a better life, and wisdom is just that, helpful hints that make your life better. And that’s partially true. When you live according to wisdom and apply the concepts of wisdom to your life, you may indeed find that you don’t lose as many friendships to stupid fights and misunderstandings; you may find that hard work pays off and leads to more accomplishment and satisfaction; you may find that you make few missteps along the way as you journey through life.

You may also find that those good choices, by themselves, don’t lead to all the happiness you want in life. Because of life is messy and our world is often unjust and twisted around. Read Ecclesiastes (another wisdom book) for more on that. Our world prizes those who push boundaries, surpass limits, and reach further and farther than they were designed to. History has long celebrated the explorer, the voyager, the frontiersman, the innovator, the billionaire, and the theorist, because they were courageous and brazen enough to redraw the lines of humanity, wealth, pleasure, or opportunity. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of progress. I think when God created heaven and earth and then set man and woman down to rule on his behalf, his blessing to them was about progress: go forth and multiply and have dominion. Spread this around, make more of it, expand beauty and goodness and life throughout the world. Make the garden of Eden overflow and fill the earth, and tame its vines and branches so that it bears more fruit, more life, more goodness. But I’ve also seen how we humans tend to take that idea and make it our own, and instead of life, humans bring about a lot more death and destruction in the name of “boundary pushing” and an overreach of the human capacity. And it happens when humans choose to take wisdom and twist it and squeeze it and wrench out the “application” and throw away the transformation.

Wisdom is not about making your life better. It’s about resting in the presence of YHWH.

SOMETHING ABOUT HOW YHWH REDEFINES PROSPERITY AND WEALTH

Wisdom, which stems from our wonder of YHWH, means loving those limits as a gift from God to bless us, to actually lead to deeper life.

PRAY

The passage that caught my eye this week was in Proverbs 23. Let’s read it together:

Proverbs 23:4–5 CSB

Don’t wear yourself out to get rich; because you know better, stop! As soon as your eyes fly to it, it disappears, for it makes wings for itself and flies like an eagle to the sky.

Don’t wear yourself out to get rich. Don’t toil and press and strain and grow weary for the purpose of accumulating wealth and prosperity for yourself.

Why? Because you know better! So stop it!

I thought the CSB’s translation of this was hilarious. The ESV is much more proper: “Be discerning enough to desist.” NIV goes a totally different route: “do not trust your own cleverness.” In Hebrew that line is only two words, and it’s even funnier: from what you understand, get fat.

That’s what it means to stop here. Stop toiling, stop growing weary from working so hard to accumulate something that will not last, and just get fat. Let yourself go, in other words.

That’s wordplay, friends. Read between the lines.

I’m not advocating that you just give up working and eat bonbons all day (is that even a thing anymore?). There are several proverbs that elevate the value of hard work and effort and perseverance, (the word you may find throughout Proverbs is diligence, enthusiasm to get the job done) and warn against laziness and “slacking.” So is this a conflict? Did Sophia mess this one up? Work hard, but don’t work hard? Don’t slack off, but stop trying so hard? What do we do with this?

The point here is about work. It’s about working yourself to death for a reward that will not go with you in death.

And it’s more than that. It’s about striving and stretching beyond our limits to make ourselves more than we were meant to be. It’s about this constant urge to take for that which does not belong to you for your own gain.

Here’s I mean by this.

I think there is a universal reality that is absolutely true, but it’s what we do with it that makes all the difference. And that universal reality is this. You are not enough. You are not the center of the universe. And what you have will not satisfy you for very long. You are creature bound by limitations. There are physical and emotional and social and economic boundaries that you cannot cross without causing great harm to yourself and others.

And the way I see it, you have two options. You can ignore the limits, you can fight to redraw the boundary lines of your life so you get more of whatever else you want; or you can stop, and you can rest.

Since the fall, the human tendency is to ignore.

You want more sexual fulfilment, so you let physical intimacy define your the satisfaction marriage, your relationships, or your run to synthesized versions to get your fix.

You want nicer things, so you put in overtime every day; you also want more appreciation, so you work even more at the expense of your family.

You want more support from the people around you, so you redraw the lines of healthy friendship.

I could go on. And church, I’m saying you, but in my mind, I’m thinking “me.” To quote Paul, I often feel like the worst of sinners, particularly in this regard. I ignore my own limits constantly; I burn myself out and cut out sleep and relaxation and fun in the name of work. And I tell myself that I have to do it, and that it’s all for the right motives, to serve others. But then I realize a lot in the aftermath that all of my work and toil for some future gain usually means I’ve missed out on being fully present with my family, with my friends, with my church. And it’s all in the name of doing and being more than I was made for.

As soon as your eyes fly to it, it disappears, for it makes wings for itself and flies lie an eagle to the sky.

Again, this is about where we fix our eyes. Enough money, enough friends, enough food, enough home, enough appreciation, enough self-glory. And where you fix your eyes is where you run. And it doesn’t matter what you break along the way; your relationships, your immune system, the law—your eyes are on the prize, and you will stop at nothing to reach it.

But can you a question? Why? What do you hope will happen when you reach it?

The option you have? Stop. Just stop. Know your limits, and love your limits.

Why? Because God made them for you. And he made your limits to keep you safe, to keep you well, and to point you to him.

When Jesus arrives, he redraws the limits of beauty and goodness and life. He takes away our striving, and he offers us his presence instead.