Wasted Windfall

“Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.” (Pr 25:16 AV)

 

I realize I have written before on the above verse.  The point was there can be too much of a good thing.  However, we want to focus on finding honey as opposed to harvesting it.  In particular, we want to notice why finding honey might lead someone to eat more than they need.  There is a great truth of particular application here stated in other areas of Proverbs.  Wealth hastily gathered is wealth often spent up quickly.  This is the idea here.  Honey that is harvested by a beekeeper will be stored and sold.  Honey which one comes upon unexpectedly would be seen as a windfall and consumed because it was rare.  The warning here is unexpected blessings are often quickly consumed rather than used in measure, thus becoming counter-productive to the purpose of the blessing, to begin with.

How many of us have found money while walking to and fro?  We probably all have found it from time to time.  Usually a coin here and there.  Not much to consider a windfall.  However, I have had occasions when I found paper money.  A dollar here, a dollar there.  In one case, I found a ten-dollar bill.  What is amazing is how our minds immediately go to how this money can be spent.  Usually towards something that we normally wouldn’t buy.  For a kid, it is some kind of snack or candy.  On the way home for middle school, there was a five-and-dime store we passed.  Every Wednesday, my mother gave all of us kids a quarter.  We could shop at the five and dime for candy or some sort of eatable.  Believe it or not, my treat was Beef-a-Roni.  But I remember one time when I had come across some money lying in the street.  The next Wednesday, it was like I went grocery shopping.  Chips, Beef-A-Roni, candy, baked goods, and Nickle candy filled a grocery bag.  I went home with enough to feed myself for a week.  It never dawned on me to put it away and save some towards a greater goal.  Or simply to save.  It seems a windfall kicks in the temptation to splurge.

Solomon’s observation is when people experience a windfall, they normally consume it quickly because they do not want to lose any of it.  In so doing, they end up hurting themselves in the long run.  Whether it is honey, or finances, coming upon something unplanned and not worked for tends to trigger an impulse that would only cause injury.  There was an episode of the Twilight Zone that featured a story of an elder couple who had three wishes from a genie.  The moral of the story is to be careful of that for which you wish.  You might get exactly what it is you wish for with all the unintended consequences that come with it.  Every time I allow my mind to go down that road of wishing things were different, I look at the consequences that would come with it and realize God knew exactly what He was doing when He ordered the life for me which I now live.  If honey comes, I pray I am disciplined enough to consume it in moderation and keep some for another time.  The principle above is not merely too much of a good thing.  It is consuming ‘all’ of a good thing when the good thing comes suddenly and unexpectedly.