“And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house,” (Pr 7:7-8 AV)
That term, ‘void of understanding’ means unable to anticipate consequences of choices. The context is young men who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. They fall to the whiles of a whorish woman. They cannot project ahead to see that being on a certain corner at a certain time of day will result in a poor choice. This type of sin is not one of rebellion. It is one of simplicity. The simple do not, or cannot, understand that each choice is followed by another one. They cannot see that choices result in consequences. This is the vast majority of the sins of younger people. I read an article regarding a group of Senior highschool students who went to a beach for Senior Cut Day. That is a day when the Seniors decide to cut school and hand out. The day is not set in stone. It is fluid. Apparently, it got around social media that there was a gathering at a local beach. What could go wrong? The police had shown up because violence began to break out. No doubt, the young and naïve went to this even with little thought of what might transpire.
Older people are not immune. In fact, the elderly are the prime targets of electronic scams. A commercial came on the TV and the idea was an innocent email or text message requested information and before the person knew it, everything they owned was scammed. Another showed a criminal passing by someone at an ATM with a scanner in hand. They could scan enough information to steal everything from the victim’s accounts. Several years back, my wife and I were standing in line at a stadium waiting for the gates to open. A random person walked in and out of this line and then continued in the opposite direction from which he came. He never did get in line to enter the game. He had a cell phone in hand with the screen on. He was reading information. We have all heard of the famous ‘funds from a foreign land’ email that asks for your account number so they can deposit funds to which the receiver is entitled. Or now, we get phantom texts from different agencies stating we have overdue fines or charges that need to be paid.
Wickedness is everywhere. We cannot be so naïve as to think there are totally safe places or situations. There is always risk or temptation involved. Wisdom sees risk and/or temptation in everything. Maturity stops before it leaps. Wisdom counts the cost. It extrapolates. It does not commit until everything that can be known is known. Wisdom does its research. It trusts nothing but God. Maturity knows the world is full of evil and there is no place where evil is absent. Wisdom does not hold to a high standard what can not be met. It does not require perfection in every and all situations. That is impossible. What maturity does is to anticipate what could happen and put in place guards against it. The young man above could have anticipated a whorish woman dwells in that part of town. Or, if he must go that way, know it as a possibility and determine in his heart that he was not going to yield. Being critical is not the same as being cynical. Being critical will keep us from falling. Being cynical will keep us from trying. A bit of maturity is all we need here. There are dangers all around. Being ready for them is the answer.
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