Proverbs 30: 32, 33. "You Want What? Hush Yo' Mouth!"

Proverbs 30: 32     If you have been foolish in exalting yourself, or if you have devised evil, put your hand on your mouth.
33     For as the churning of milk produces butter,

And wringing the nose produces blood,

So the forcing of wrath produces strife.

Proverbs 30: 32, 33.   You know those people who like to brag about how they got somebody fired, undermined somebody’s reputation, took credit for someone else’s work, or stole somebody’s man/ woman?

God says that those people need to just SHUT UP TALKING.

In Proverbs 30: 32, the Lord says, “Shh!  Shhhhh!  Put your hand over your mouth and zip it!”

Quit telling folks that God promised you somebody else’s spouse.  God doesn’t wanna hear that mess.

Stop praying for God to give you your boss’s job while your boss is sitting in his office with no plans to quit or retire.  You’re asking God to make somebody else unemployed so you can get a raise. 

Shut yo’ mouth.  The Lord ain’t hearing that.

Stop driving through occupied neighborhoods, naming and claiming a house where a family already lives.  You’re asking God to make those people homeless so you can get a granite countertop----- in Jesus name.

When you foolishly pursue personal promotion with no concern for the damage your ambition does to others, you might as well stop talking about the favor of God, because when you act like that, you are outside of God’s will.  And you can’t expect  God’s favor while you are outside of His will.

You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4: 2, 3)

If you take a smooth container of fresh milk and agitate it over time, then the smooth becomes lumpy.  It’s natural cause and effect based on how God has designed milk.

If you grab your perfectly healthy nose, and twist and bend it, your nose will bruise and bleed.  It’s a logical result based on the way God has designed your nose.

In the same way, if you inject yourself into peaceful situations and churn up drama to force people out of the positions you want for yourself, then over time you will feel the natural and logical effect of how God has designed life:  God will withdraw his favor and mercy, and you will be left spiritually naked and alone to reap the pain and suffering of all the strife you have sown.

Ambition isn’t sin.  The problem is SMALL-MINDED ambition. 

It’s ambitious to want a better job.  Nothing’s wrong with that.  Small-minded ambition is when you want a better job, but you think that the only better job the one somebody already has.  The world is bigger than what’s right in front of you. 

It’s ambitious to want a nicer car.  Small-minded ambition is when you act like the only nice car made on earth is the one in the yard across the street.  Get your own, and for goodness’ sake be individual enough not to buy the exact same make and model that’s in the yard across the street.

Small-minded ambition wants what they have. 

Godly ambition wants what God has for you.

Small-minded ambition is not prosperity.  It’s destroying your brother so you can have your brother’s stuff.

That’s coveting.

That’s sin.

When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you.  Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean.  Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil.  (Isaiah 1: 15-16)

In other words, Hush yo’ mouth, and quit all that mess.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

Call  334-288-0577
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