Ways of the Wise > 목회자칼럼

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1. Seek to do the right thing every day:

For women, a good perfume is essential. The same goes for a man’s cologne. 

This is doubly true for those who are single and wanting to attract a spouse, 

by creating a pleasing and inviting environment. In Solomon’s comparison, 

a good reputation goes before us as the aroma of our character. 

Our reputation is built over time and can be lost at any time. 

Therefore, just like a wall is built by stacking one brick at a time, so too our 

reputation is built by doing the right thing one day at a time as best we can by 

what we know. 

2. Live every day for one day:

Like a picture in a frame, death frames life. 

The average person has about 27,000 days to live their life on the earth. 

After that, our opportunities to learn, love, and leave an impact are gone. 

It is so easy to waste our life one hour and day at a time, so it is wise to start 

with the end in mind and work backward. Just as plugging a final destination 

into a navigation technology so that we are directed purposefully toward a 

desired end, likewise thinking about our last day and our funeral can be helpful 

and clarifying. What do you want your last day to be like? Who do you want to be 

at your funeral? What do you want them to say? How do you want them to feel? 

What difference do you want to leave after you are gone? Solomon reminds us 

that we can learn a lot about life by not just attending parties, but also funerals. 

For the Christian “the day you die is better than the day you are born”. 

Paul says the same thing in Philippians 1:21 that, “living means living for Christ, 

and dying is even better.” 

3. Keep one ear open and one ear closed:

Solomon rightly reminds us that both wise and foolish people are happy to tell us 

what they think. But, if we want good for our lives, we have to have one closed ear 

turned toward the fools, and one open ear turned toward the wise. 

How do we know who the fools are? Solomon gives us a two-fold test. 

One, a fool treats everything with a levity that is unfitting. 

Not everything is funny, not everything is a joke, and not everything can be dealt 

with by a sense of humor. Fools tend to be shallow and unable to swim out into 

the deep waters of life. They splash around the shallow shore and treat real matters 

like they are simple and not worth fretting over.  A fool can be fun in the good times, 

and downright annoying in the tough times. Two, a fool fades fast. Like a fire made 

with dried thorns, they burn hot and fast with a lot of passion and energy that is 

gone quickly. A fool will show a lot of emotion and make a lot of promises in a loud 

volume at the beginning of a lengthy trial but are gone before the real work even 

begins. Fools don’t really count the cost of walking with someone through a hard 

season, so they say a lot, do a little, and are nowhere to be found after the first trip 

to chemo or the divorce attorney.