Respect The Process

“Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” (Pr 3:7 AV)

When we think of doing evil, we often think of it as a purely carnal thing where the impulses of the flesh and heart take over and the mind really doesn’t get involved.  Of course, we know that is not true.  Some evil is thought over rather well.  It is rationalized in our own minds.  We often try to justify our actions with a warped sense of pragmatism or morality.  The idea here is a lack of fear of the LORD will result in our own rationale being the authority for the wrong that we do.  The word ‘evil’ does not necessarily mean wrong.  God brings evil to the unjust.  ‘Evil’ is the nature of a thing.  But in the passage above, evil is sin.  We know this because we are told to depart from it.  A judge may issue the death penalty.  The nature of the penalty is evil, but the judgment is just.  This is what God often does.  But not above.  The meaning of the word above does suggest sin.  The point is to fear God more than we value our rationale.  In doing so, our natural response would be to depart from evil.

We tend to think of the fear of the LORD in terms of what He will do if we are disobedient.  But that is not the thought above. The fear of the LORD is compared to our own rationale.  In other words, we prefer our own values or judgment over the fear of the LORD.  That would mean we value our judgment, priorities, etc. over God’s values, judgment, priorities, etc.  We lack fear of the LORD if we do not respect, appreciate, and incorporate His way of thinking.  We do this by nature.  Once we gain the ability to think abstractly and critically, our pride values what the brain produces and sometimes, learning the hard way is the only way to fix it.  Many years ago, I was tasked by my employer to write procedures for a production method that did not have these in writing.  It was a new product with new equipment and procedures.  So, I wrote and drew all the procedures for accomplishing the tasks assigned to employees.  These procedures were binding in the sense if you deviated from them and something evil happened, you would be on the hook for it.  Once written down, I had several operators go through it and poke holes in the manual.  We made adjustments and finally submitted it to our safety and management teams.  Another walk-through was done.  There was a trial period of about a week.  Once all the hiccups were ironed out, it became the official policy procedure for the manufacturing process.

This did not stop new hires from testing the legitimacy of the manual.  They put to the test what had been written and attempted to come up with a better mouse trap.  Sometimes it worked.  Most of the time, it did not.  It resulted in bad product, inefficiency, or worse of all, injury to an employee.  They did not respect the process.  They did not respect the wisdom of those who had labored so hard to come up with a safe and productive process.  Some of them lost their situation because of it.  When it comes to what God has written we need to respect the process.  When it comes to God’s values, we need to honor His above our own.  When it comes to goals, plans, and expectations, God’s are infinitely more important than what our little brains can cook up.  Solomon is making it simple here.  To depart from evil is to respect God for who and what He is.  To depart from evil means it does not matter what we think.  What God thinks is infinitely more important.  Do you want victory?  Then respect the process.  Respect the God of the process.