(October 10, 2025) Mama Lava shares from her heart regarding Proverbs…

Finally! Saturday arrived and I sat at Starbucks with a drink I’d been craving. I settled in and opened the Bible app on my phone. It was October 1, and I headed to Proverbs 1.

It has been a long-time habit to read a Proverb a day. Proverbs has 31 chapters, which makes it the perfect length. And because it is a book of incredible wisdom, I can’t imagine ever reading it enough times to master or tire of it.

Finding Perspective
I typically read from my NIV Bible… but my Bible app opened in the NLT, which is very similar, but just different enough to intrigue me. The familiar verses pulled me in with slightly different wording and made me think about them with fresh perspective.

The first few verses of Proverbs state the purpose of the book. I’m going to share from the NLT just what I read:

‘These are the proverbs of Solomon, David’s son, king of Israel.

Their purpose is to teach people wisdom and discipline,
    to help them understand the insights of the wise.
Their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives,
    to help them do what is right, just, and fair.
These proverbs will give insight to the simple,
    knowledge and discernment to the young.

Let the wise listen to these proverbs and become even wiser.
    Let those with understanding receive guidanceby exploring the meaning in these proverbs and parables,
    the words of the wise and their riddles’ (v1-6).

Doesn’t that draw you in? I felt excited about the month ahead. I prepared for what God was going to show me. But I didn’t expect a blog to form already, that day, in the first chapter of the book.

As I read on, I had to shake my head. In those verses, which I’ve read on the first day of every month for so many years, God showed me something important.

• Hearing, heeding, and honouring wisdom is a counter measure for anxiety!

’When they cry for help, I will not answer.
    Though they anxiously search for me, they will not find me.
For they hated knowledge
    and chose not to fear the Lord.
They rejected my advice
    and paid no attention when I corrected them.

‘For simpletons turn away from me— to death.
    Fools are destroyed by their own complacency.
But all who listen to me will live in peace,
    untroubled by fear of harm’ (Proverbs 1:20-21, 23-26, 28-30, 32-33 emphasis mine).

It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? We feel it deeply when we are not centred. When we reject wisdom from God, and turn to other sources for instruction, we don’t find the answers we need. We feel lost, anxious, and desperate.

Finding Peace
Wisdom brings peace.  As we focus on ‘peace’ this month, in our year-long discussion about battling anxiety, this first chapter of Proverbs sets the perfect stage. Wisdom is not hiding; not hard to find. Wisdom stands in the spotlight, speaking lines clearly, enunciating words and projects loudly.

• To ignore wisdom is a choice.
• If it is peace we seek, it will be found in the wisdom of God’s word.
• My friends, will you spend time with me in the book of Proverbs this month?
• How about next month and the month after that? The peace we crave is found in wisdom.
• Let’s be people who hear, heed, and honour Godly wisdom— not just as a countermeasure for anxiety, but as a blueprint for a life worth living!

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Mama Lava delights to share openly and honestly from her heart. She sincerely believes in making the big world a bit smaller through caringly connecting, that Jesus wants to remove our anxieties and give us His joy. In her encouragements, Mama Lava regularly tells of life experiences from an unapologetically Christian viewpoint. Link: Mama Lava’s Back Porch (Doses of Maternal Love).
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