Proverbs 13:15 “Good understanding gives favor, but the way of transgressors is hard.”
As I wrote earlier in the first chapter of this book, understanding is what we have after applying knowledge over and over again in our lives in various situations. Understanding is the direct result of experience. It is experience in earthly things that grants us favor in the eyes of man concerning the things of this world, and experience in spiritual things that grants us favor in the eyes of God concerning the things of the kingdom of God.
But fools will continue to transgress the boundaries of what is good and proper both concerning spiritual things and earthly things. Their way is a hard way because they still have not learned to change their methods despite the continuous failures of their destructive experiments. George Bernard Shaw says, “Success does not consist in never making mistakes, but in never making the same one a second time.” Benjamin Franklin says, “It is insanity to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.” In order to get different results you must try a different experiment with different methods.
Understanding certainly does grant favor, but it does not come cheaply. Great discoveries are being made everyday. Most of which are discoveries that were built upon the foundation of previous ones. Let’s let our understanding be also built upon the sure foundations of the success of our predecessors, who through great trial and error found truth and established it. It is better to learn through another man’s pain than it is your own.
Pastor LaVaughn
