29:3 – Whoever loves wisdom makes his father rejoice, but a companion of harlots wastes his wealth.
Seems pretty obvious – seek wisdom; stay away from harlots. Your father will be happy, and you’ll be wealthier.
But wisdom and harlots? How often do we actually have to make that choice?
Every day – and most of us regularly choose the harlot.
Think about how a harlot attracts clients? She grabs our attention and entices us off the path we have chosen.
What happens when you open your email inbox? You’re barraged by advertisements, tasks, forwarded emails. All of them are demanding your attention and most of them will pull you off of the path you should be on – at least for that day.
We are under a constant barrage of “stuff” screaming for, or trying to entice us to give them, our attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s our email inbox(es), our television, going to watch a game in person, watching a movie, surfing the internet, etc., etc., etc. We are pummeled by all sorts of things designed to break our focus, grab our attention, and shift it in a different direction.
And, what happens? We’re moved away from the “wisdom” of our day; the “wisdom” of our life into some enticement.
The result? We stop making the progress in our own lives that we should be making. We become trained to seek the easiest path to immediate gratification. We squander our wealth, our energy, our time on this earth.
It must be frustrating to our parents who see the limitless potential we have. And, ultimately, we waste the wealth we have been given – our unique ability to contribute to this world.
