September 17, 2018

Define free.

If you are reading this and you haven’t yet taken advantage the various WordPress University sites, I highly recommend you look into it! First of all, they’re free.

Well, okay, we all know what that means. There is a cost somewhere to somebody. Those who write for and administrate the courses have to get a paycheck somehow, and time is money. So in the interest of accuracy, we’ll just say it’s FREE to those of us who take the courses.

Alright, try again. There is no “pecuniary remuneration” on the part of the student, but one does need to invest a currency concerning which there is no refund—TIME. To get out of the course, you have to dig, experiment, and try, try again. These courses are intentional, at times frustrating, but to new writers, very rewarding. As usual, you get out of it what you put into it.

Which is what this looks like to me:

“These are more proverbs of Solomon, collected by the advisers of King Hezekiah of Judah.”

This is the opening verse to Proverbs chapter twenty-five, and God allowed it in here for some reason. I figured at minimum 240 years between had elapsed from when King Sol died and Hezekiah began ruling in Judah (check my math please.) That’s a lot of water under the bridge, several things have happened in that area during this time.

But how does the king choose to invest his advisors time?

By digging for wisdom from God Almighty (via His conduit of wisdom, Solomon). That should speak boatloads to us today. It may have been Solomon’s father, David, who put it this way:

“Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man whom You discipline and instruct, O Lord, and teach out of Your law, that You may give him power to keep himself calm in the days of adversity…”

Proper instruction is essential, but it certainly isn’t “free”. I will always have skin in the game, so to speak, by seeking out the instruction, and then by applying it.

God’s courses, however, are paid for…in blood.

Proverbs 25:1 Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

About dawnlizjones

Tends toward TMI, so here's the short list: guitar and banjo (both of which have been much neglected as of late), bicycling (ibid), dogs, very black tea, and contemplating and commenting on deep philosophical thoughts about which I have had no academic or professional training. Oh, also reading, writing, but I shy away from arithmetic. View all posts by dawnlizjones

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2018 at 9:12 am and tagged with application of wisdom, discipline, free, God, Hezekiah, instruction, Intentional, seeking advice, Solomon, tenacity, Wisdom, Wordpress University and posted in advice, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.