Avoiding the Ditches

In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these:  a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.  Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise–why destroy yourself?  Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool–why die before you time?  It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other.  The man who fears God will follow them both (avoid all extremes).  Ecclesiastes 7: 13-18.

Here lies the hardest place for any of us to live.  Why?  Because most people are naturally given to extremes of some sort.  Even the mellow people are extremely mellow when they should respond with more animation.

I’ve wondered about Solomon’s use of overrighteous and overwicked puzzling over what they could mean.  But if we just take the context at hand, it we see light.

A person who goes for the overrighteous phase will be an extremely performance oriented religionist or whatever moral code they adhere to.  Ascetics tend to make “self-denial” into a self abuse in odd forms.  People proclaimed to be wise move out onto mountain retreats, become hermits and generally extract themselves from life altoghether.  It’s become quite clear to me through this passage that those who escape from every day concerns have very little wisdom to impart concerning them.

If Life Were A Game…

I use football (the American variety but the other could easily be substituted) as an example of this.  A person who has never played the game cannot instruct one who has very well.  O they might see the opening over there on the side, or be able to point out how the player on the field failed, but in reality, since they are not part of the game, they don’t have the experience or knowledge to advise the player.  It’s really easy to tell someone who is facing four heavily muscled linebackers to plow through them or go around, but it’s quite another to do it.

This is what those who separate themselves out from daily living are to me:  Spectators.  Without successful experience in relationships, business or the daily grind, advising others is just couch potato players yelling about things they don’t understand.  George MacDonald once said that he would never allow a man to become a pastor or minister of any kind until he had lived a normal life for time.  His stated age would be forty or so to allow the pastor time to gain experience at living.  Many come right out of college to give advice to those who have more wisdom, experience and knowledge of living than they do.  God is a practical being and doesn’t spiritualize away the grocery money, although He asks us to have faith with or without it.

Being overwicked though, is even more foolish because those who go this route destroy too much good for their tenure on earth to be worth it.  These kinds of people throw the game before they even get started or cheat their way to a win.  They become useless to themselves and everyone else by not only the aforementioned destructive behavior, but the attitudes, lifestyle and general fruit they bear.  I’ve met people who go this route and they aren’t happy (and a few don’t expect to be) with life in general and do their level best to make disciples of their futilism.  A completely wicked POV is not the answer either.

We must recognize the tendancy in us to be righteous and wicked, good or evil, for both natures exist in our psyche.  Who we become and our success or failure depends on which nature we feed.

The man of God will hold on to them both or …avoid all extremes.  Holding on to the fact that I have tendancies toward wickedness warns me of the danger that lies that way.  My righteous nature will warn me of this constantly.  Yet the righteous nature can become somewhat of an evil if go the route of denying my evil by trying to live whatever law I believe to be righteous.  Denying my negative nature is a lie that I might be willing to tell myself if I’m afraid of failing at righteousness.

Here is where the yin yang principle works in theory as well as practice.  We are creatures of both natures.  Embracing them both doesn’t mean we let the evil in us win the day sometimes or the righteous deny the evil.  What it does mean is that we see both natures at work and use wisdom to produce the good without ever denying the possibility of our wickedness.  Even good intentions can come off wrong, the best of efforts result in disaster.  To deny our part in it is to deny our ability to make a hash of things.

Those who hate being wrong, will seek to distract others with their “righteous” life.  Those who hate failure of any sort will run away from life and isolate themselves somewhere so that the dichotomy of living doesn’t touch them, so the challenges of life can’t set them up for any kind of failure.  Those who cop out might choose to become everything their negative urges tell them to be, giving in to the wicked nature inside of them because they think this the sum and total of them.

Being able to see the truth of these things is what wisdom shows  us.  Being able to balance out our POV is what wisdom gives to us to help us live.

What does Proverbs say?  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…

Tags: balance, living for God, righteousness, the game of life, wickedness, wisdom