“Do you hear Lady Wisdom calling? Can you hear Madame Insight raising her voice?
She’s taken her stand at First and Main, at the busiest intersection. Right in the city square where the traffic is thickest, she shouts, “You—I’m talking to all of you, everyone out here on the streets! Listen, you idiots—learn good sense! You blockheads—shape up! Don’t miss a word of this—I’m telling you how to live well, I’m telling you how to live at your best. My mouth chews and savors and relishes truth—I can’t stand the taste of evil! You’ll only hear true and right words from my mouth; not one syllable will be twisted or skewed. You’ll recognize this as true—you with open minds; truth-ready minds will see it at once. Prefer my life-disciplines over chasing after money, and God-knowledge over a lucrative career. For Wisdom is better than all the trappings of wealth; nothing you could wish for holds a candle to her.” (Proverbs 8:1-11 The Message Bible)
As younger children, at some time or the other, you said words similar if not exact to an older sibling, expressing this feeling in an adamant way, “You are not the boss of me!” Funny, older siblings still express the same words today. Sometimes aloud and sometimes silently. On the job while the managers and supervisors were meeting, somebody with a little seniority let it go to their head and they tried to tell you what to do. Your response, “You are not the boss of me.” Doctors prescribe changes to our behaviors to increase our health and our healing. In the office we shake our heads up and down in the affirmative, nodding as if we are going to do exactly what the physician says. However, once we get out of sight, all the nodding of the head, our faux agreement is thrown out the window and our actions, once again, are justified as being okay because of that expression rattling in our minds, “You are not the boss of me.” Such a disposition! It will even not let even the experts tells us what to do at times. An older sibling may try to help us change your habits, even in our senior years. But again, some of us, in a robotic fashion, find ourselves resisting instruction with that same attitude, “You are not the boss of me.”
We can get away with resisting instructions a lot of times, but when the real authority in our secular and/or organizational environments gives us instructions, things go better when we do as we are asked. Usually that is the case, but let’s be fair. There are some instances where we have to speak up to protect our integrity, our safety, and our status as a concerned subordinate. Sometimes, if no one is placed in danger, we may follow the instructions and clear things up in private at a later time or take it to the next link on the chain of command or knock on the next door on the “open door” policy. At the appropriate time, we repel the “You are not the boss of me” syndrome.
Now there is One who is in charge, One filled with wisdom; One we should always let Him take control. You know who I am referring to, the Lord Jesus Christ! Let Him be the boss of you! Let Him tell you what to do and things will come out better. Ask those at the wedding in Cana where Jesus took control and turned water into wine. Ask the Samaritan woman whose life was made better by Jesus’ offering of living water from a source that never runs dry. Ask the paralyzed man who Jesus told to take up his mat and walk. Ask the ten lepers who called out to Jesus and found a healing because they let Jesus be the boss of them and they did not resist His instructions. Ask any Christian who let the Lord have control of a situation and they did just what He told them to do. They will share their testimony with you about not resisting instruction from the Lord. They will tell you about how they acted on the Lord’s wisdom and built their “houses” on the rock. Oh who are we kidding? Let us just look at ourselves and we will see how much better situations improved or how our witness withstood our situations when we followed Jesus’ instructions; instructions that should be perceived as wisdom revealed.
My advice for you is not just for this Friday, but it is for every day. Let Jesus be “the boss of you” throughout life. Let His wisdom infiltrates every incident and every interaction. Or, as you say, let Him be the Lord of your life! Let Him be the head of your life! Let the Lord take control. He will not steer you way from wisdom. Have a great start to your weekend. Be blessed!
“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.” (Matthew 7: 24 KJV)
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King