A WORD TO THE WISE: Proverbs 27: 3 "UnTrapped"

Proverbs 27: 3     A stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but a fool’s wrath is heavier than both of them. (New King James Version)
The NIV says:  Stone is heavy and sand a burden, but provocation by a fool is heavier than both.
The NLV says:  A stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but the resentment caused by a fool is even heavier.

Proverbs 27: 3. Remember the Japanese couple from the news article I attached with Proverbs 26: 27?  The ones who died when they fell into a pit on the husband’s birthday?  Remember that it wasn’t the fall that killed them.  They didn’t starve or die of thirst.  They died because the sand filled in around them and the weight of it choked them to death. (click here for the article)

In April 2003, a hiker named Aron Ralston became trapped in an isolated canyon in Utah when a boulder fell on his arm.  He tried chipping away at the boulder in order to free himself, but  the stone was too big.  After 4 days, he resigned himself to dying there with his arm trapped under the heavy stone.

Try to quantify the sense of desperation felt by that Japanese couple and by the young man trapped in that canyon.  Now add the totals of their emotion. 

When you are dealing with an angry fool, an idiot with a nasty attitude who is determined to make your attitude just as nasty, when you are pursued by the drama caused and promoted by some jerk who feels justified & just in stirring up all the mess he/she can; then the level of frustration that rises up inside you may exceed that of a man trapped under a rock and a couple trapped in a sand pit--- combined.

You want to get away.  You want to make it stop.  You want it to be a dream. 

You think,  “Did he really just say that?   Nah.  I must have misunderstood him.  Wait.     Really?   Am I seriously having to deal with this?   Now?   Oh Lord, don’t let me punch this person in the face.  Oh Lord, please let me punch this person in the face.  Does this fool want to make me punch him in the face?  Somebody PLEASE get me out of here!  Help! Help!  Somebody!   Anybody!!”

The couple trapped in the sand perished because every time someone moved a handful of sand out of the way, another filled the space.  Nobody stopped the pit from refilling itself, so they remained trapped until it was too late. 

Aron Ralson couldn’t change the size of the stone enough to get it off him-------- so he cut off his arm.   He had to break the bone and saw away with a dull pocketknife.    He lived and went on to marry, have a son, write a book, and hike again.

If you want to extract yourself from the weight of that fool’s drama, then (1^st) you have to stem the flow of foolishness into your life.  Don’t sit quietly up under their gossip.  Tell them that you don’t want to hear what they heard--- and don’t.  Don’t delude yourself into thinking that you can check in with them on a little “news.”  You’ll just be filling in the pit, and soon you’ll feel trapped again.

(2^nd) You have to be willing to accept that the stone won’t stop being a stone.  In other words, once you’ve tried to get them to change their ways and they haven’t, you have to cut yourself off. 

Matthew 5:.^29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. ^30And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

You can’t change them.  Change yourself.  Oh yeah, this’ll hurt--- a lot. 

Seek, confess, and deal with the reasons inside yourself that make your susceptible to this fool’s mess.  Deal with the stuff in you that has made you afraid to properly (Biblically) confront the crushing flow of dirt that they bring into your life.

The thought, “Why do I keep going through this?” isn’t a rhetorical question.  To answer it you may have to be broken; you will have to cut down to the bare bone and tear off some stuff you thought you couldn’t live without.

Or, you could stay in exactly the position you are in ----- and die (inside).

----- Anderson T. Graves II

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is the pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church

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