Proverbs 10:30-32 — Positive Psychology Time

READ THIS: Proverbs 10:30-32

30 The righteous will never be uprooted, but the wicked will not remain in the land. 31 From the mouth of the righteous comes the fruit of wisdom, but a perverse tongue will be silenced. 32 The lips of the righteous know what finds favor, but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse.

WHAT’S THIS MEAN, ANYWAY?

Here we have another comparison between the righteous versus the wicked. The righteous are planted, speak kindly, and can please God. The wicked are ungrounded, use messed up language, and act in a way that opposes God. 

Fun fact of the day: there is a type of psychology called "positive psychology." The way this psychology works is that it studies what makes humans do well in life. So, for example, say psychologists are trying to understand what causes anxiety. A positive psychologist would study the least anxious people to try to figure out what things they are doing that leads to less anxiety. Sometimes it is way more helpful to study what works well instead of studying what isn't working well. So, it might be cool to apply some positive psychology logic to these verses! Instead of hyper focusing on what NOT to do, let's focus on what TO do!

If we want to be planted, speak kindly, and please God....then we need to know what kind of people do those things so we can study how to do it. Verse 30 says that it is the righteous who do those types of things. So, how do we study righteous people?! Why don't we think about it in the next section...

THINK ABOUT IT:

1. Who is the most "righteous" person you know? (Remember, "righteous" is just a fancy way of saying "right with God." How do you gauge if someone is right with God...? Is that something we can even do, and, if so, to what extent?)

2. What is one thing that that "righteous person" does that you think helps them be righteous daily? (Important note here is that it is only through Jesus that we can be right with God! There are things we can do to help ourselves walk daily with God, but there is NOTHING we can do on our own that actually makes us fully right with God. We need Jesus for that!)

 

TRY THIS:

Whatever your answer was for number two, try and do that today in some way! If it's something that you also do, try to do it MORE today!