"For the waywardness of the simple will kill them..."

Continuing to read Proverbs 1:29-33
"For the waywardness of the simple will kill them..."

Waywardness is the tendency to wander off without really giving your destination any thought. If life is meaningless there is no such thing as waywardness. No path means anything and no destination is any better than another. Waywardness is only a problem for those who believe that life has meaning and value and who believe that some choices are better than others. It is a particular problem for those who believe in the existence of a God who has revealed something of his character and of his plan for his creation.

A tendency to waywardness means constant delays in my journey to love, joy, peace and freedom. Enough waywardness will "kill" this journey altogether. Waywardness has nothing to do with spontaneity or serendipity. It has to do with undercutting my own future and my own best desires for myself.

There are a few things I need to know about this in order to protect myself. The first thing is, what are those areas in which I am most likely to go astray? If I know myself at all I can list them all very quickly. The second thing I need to know is why I choose to take a path that is destructive for me. This is more complex and requires a deeper level of honesty. Here I will have to admit to myself what my real values are (as opposed to my stated values), what my beliefs about the likelyhood of consequences are, and what I think the wayward behavior is going to do for me (i.e. my reward system).

In the end what we have is a clash of values. I think my waywardness will enrich my life, God thinks it will kill me. One of us is wrong.