Jesus says, "No one is good but the Father", so discovering good is discovering God.
But.....keeping understanding and getting sense isn't all that easy.
You have to take rebuke and criticism along the way.
And I've always had a hard time taking criticism and rebuke. As soon as I sense it, I close myself up like a hedgehog and hide until the words stop. And for the longest time, I'd tell myself, "Hey, it's okay; this too shall pass; it'll blow over" and tried to forget the whole thing.
And because of it, I continually made the same mistakes.
But one morning, I read the day's devotion from Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest. (I've searched the book many times trying to find the devotion to share, but I simply cannot find it!)
Mr. Chambers was writing about wisdom. It was on one of the Proverbs about rebuke.
Simply, he said that when the fool hears rebuke, he closes the door to wisdom and never improves. Contrarily, the wise man leaves his door open to rebuke--he loves wisdom so much that he jumps at every chance he can in order to be more like Jesus.
(I'd heard this a thousand times from my parents, but something was different about the way Mr. Chambers put it)
That devotion deeply impressed me. The Holy Spirit opened my eyes to see that every time I heard rebuke, I had an opportunity--
I could listen and become wiser and learn how to love Jesus better
or
I could ignore the truth and never grow spiritually.
Now every time I read Proverbs, I keep an eye out for those special verses on rebuke.
The one that comes to mind when I am being corrected is Proverbs 25:12, " Like an earring of gold or an ornament of fine gold is a wise man's rebuke to a listening ear."
Hopefully as I grow older, I'll have so many ornaments of fine gold in my heart that I can give them away to those who need them.
So, maybe I shouldn't say I'm being corrected anymore. I'm really being showered with treasures untold. And I'm discovering God.
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