Proverbs 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.… We must allow no habits of mind to grow upon us which shall unfit us for making the best opportunities of life when they come. We have power in ourselves, by the grace of God, to quicken the perception which shall see the opportunity when it comes, and upon ourselves rests the responsibility of keeping the resolution and the will in hand, so as to grasp the opportunity while it is within our reach. Perception is to a great degree a matter of education. The faculty of observation is improved in a child by its parent or teacher. Great study elicits from the student in riper years a marvellous quickness and acuteness in observing. Illustrate cultured power of observation in the painter, forester, or naturalist. Same is true in the spiritual life. If your habitual practice be to refer all things to God, that devotion, that practice will give you a presence of mind in the face of every accident. A sudden sorrow may come, but you will not lose your presence of mind and readiness and accuracy of perception. Conversions that appear to be sudden, may not be so sudden as they seem to be; there may have been foregoing preparations, especially the habit of the previous life to refer all things to God with devotion. A man who has made himself unspiritual has dulled his sense of perception, and the man who has known the will of God and done it not, loses the power to rise up and follow Christ. See some ways in which the preparation of our own heart in former years makes us ready or unready to use the opportunities which God offers us. Take a man's discipline of temper, which touches a man's character very much indeed. To such a man a time of trial, disappointment, failure, comes. God thus affords the man an opportunity for the greatest and best of all the graces that can adorn humanity. It is an opportunity for true humility. The check will be a blessing to him if he has previously prepared himself by self-discipline and heart-culture. (Canon Furse.) Parallel Verses KJV: The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.WEB: The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from Yahweh. |
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