Live
and Learn
Proverbs
1:1-7
Sometimes, especially when we’ve been through a negative
experience, we say, “Well, you live and learn!”
What we mean, I think, is that, since experience is often a hard but
effective teacher, we have learned another lesson to add to our “Things to
Avoid” list.
Each of us knows at least one person who does not live and learn. No matter how long they live they never seem
to get any wiser. I’ve heard it said,
for instance, that a teacher may have 25 years of experience, or one year of
experience 25 times. We all know which
person’s classroom we’d rather be sitting in.
Recently I came across the proverb, “Learn as if you were
to live forever. Live as if you were to
die tomorrow.” I’d like to explore this
statement a bit.
The first section of the Book of Proverbs was written by
Solomon—at least that’s the name attached to it. Solomon was known for his wisdom writing, a
genre popular in the ancient Middle East.
Several parts of the Bible are wisdom literature, including a couple of
the general epistles in the New Testament.
The first chapter of Proverbs focuses on wisdom. That makes sense, since we usually think of
proverbs as tiny bits of wisdom that, if heeded, might help us avoid learning
some of life’s lessons the hard way.
Solomon says, “Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one
who understands obtain guidance.”
Proverbs are given to us to allow us, “To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight…to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and
discretion to the youth.” I believe
these last words will help us understand the first half of our proverb: “Learn as if you were to live forever.”
In truth, we’re all simple and we’re all young—that is, when
we compare the span of our life with God’s life, or when we compare our wisdom
with God’s wisdom. No matter how much we
know, we’re simple. No matter how old we
are, we’re still children at the beginning of our education. We must be lifelong learners, accumulating as
much knowledge—and hopefully as a byproduct as much wisdom—as our time on earth
allows, knowing that, no matter how much we learn, our knowledge will amount to
the tiniest drop in the largest bucket in God’s realm.
The second half of our proverb might disturb us. We don’t like to think about death,
especially our death—especially our imminent death. We hope to live forever. That’s what heaven is all about: the chance to live eternally in the best of
all possible worlds. We can’t worry
about heaven, or what it might be like, or when we’ll get there. All of that is beyond our knowledge and our
control. Instead we must be concerned
with what happens in this life. How
should we live?
The proverb says, “Live as if you were to die
tomorrow.” This is not a negative
statement. In fact, it’s the most
positive statement about life that anyone can make. We are to live life to the fullest every day,
no exceptions, no letdown, no time off.
If you knew today was your last day on earth, what would
you do? How would you spend your
time? How would you live? Whatever might be your answers to those
questions, that’s the way you should live today—and tomorrow, and the day after
tomorrow, and the day after that. Live
every day as if you were to die the next.
Richard Bach, the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull says, “Here is the test to find whether
your mission on earth is finished: If
you’re alive, it isn’t.”
That’s how we should live and learn.
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