Living the Proverbs

Charles R. Swindoll

Published by Worthy

“Like a dog that returns to its vomit…Is a fool who repeats his folly.”

I am often more like the fool than the wise man, and I return to my folly more often than I ought. It would be nice to find wisdom pills that can be digested with the resulted wisdom I need for the day. Vitamin B_YT, Bite Your Tongue, would come in handy. A dose of Vitamin L_P, Loving Reproof, would help me when dealing with my children at home and with my students at school. There are no such vitamins, but fortunately God provides small doses of wisdom throughout the book of Proverbs to help guide us.

Charles Swindoll’s Living the Proverbs is a devotional for Christ followers. Its subtitle Insight for the Daily Grind reminds us that life is tough, and a bit of insight from God’s word can help.

The devotional can fill 26 weeks of your life, or it can be a resource for time of need. The book of Proverbs addresses a lot of life’s issues, such as the following:

• Disobedience
• Worry
• Unguarded heart
• Troubled heart
• Discontentment
• Procrastination
• Laziness
• Addiction
• Revenge
• Envy

Charles Swindoll discusses these issues and more in his book. Each topic fills one week of devotion.

The topic that resonates with me is covered in two weeks, The Grind of an Uncontrolled Tongue. Swindoll does a nice job with this topic in particular. He covers five wrong ways the tongue can be used in the first part:

1. Deceitful flattery
2. Gossip and slander
3. Arguments, strife, and angry words
4. Boasting
5. Verbosity

In the second section of The Grind of an Uncontrolled Tongue, Swindoll walks the reader through some ways that help avoid the problems previously discussed.

1. Wise counsel and sound advise
2. Reproof, rebuke, spiritual exhortation
3. Words of encouragement
4. Witnessing, teaching, comforting
5. A good sense of humor