Our Favorite Proverbs: Proverbs 13:15

Welcome to this moment of hope I'm Jen Houston joined by pastor David in Maryland

Chadwick. We're in a series called our favorite proverbs and today we're

going to take a look at Proverbs 1315. David will you share with us how common

sense fits in with prayer? I will Jen let me read the verse and then we'll get

into this today. Good sense wins favor but the way of the treacherous is their

ruin. So I think in this Proverbs 1315 insight we see the value of common

sense which I think is thoroughly lacking in today's society and culture. In

fact even go back to the revolutionary wartime period a couple hundred years

ago a guy by the name of Thomas Payne wrote something called common sense. It

was a regular distribution to the colonists and it was hugely successful. I

mean thousands upon thousands of them would read it regularly again the

value of common sense but if you look at today's culture you spend five

minutes on social media and you see everybody's got an opinion on just about

everything and you don't know what is truly true and you don't see much common

sense as well. So that's why I think studying the book of Proverbs together

over these weeks has been really fun because it's filled with common sense. Now

Jen answer your question is there a connection between common sense and prayer?

My daddy used to say all the time you know sometimes I wonder if prayer isn't

just good common sense expressed to God. So I think that's true because when we

pray we try to figure out the will of God and God's will is pure common sense. So

when you pray you try to figure out what looks like the right avenue, pray it to

the Lord, trust him with the answer and then you know it will end up in a good

place because God is perfectly good in every way. So common sense folks I would

invite all of you to have friends who have good common sense listen to them.

Maybe a wise counselor you might need to go to has good common sense but also go

to the Lord because he is the giver of common sense and usually the simplest

way the commonest way is God's way and you can trust him in that way when it's

exposed to you especially through prayer. Marilyn? You know I'm sitting here

thinking of all the evidence for the fact that the world fell and to me one of

the evidence is that the fall is that common sense is not very common you know

we just don't naturally gravitate toward that and I find it fascinating that a

child sometimes can reach a common sense answer even before a thoroughly

educated adult and so I think we have to be careful sometimes education and I

would say right alongside that too much time on social media takes our common

sense and throws it out the window and I if I hear one more person tell me I'll

listen to podcasts so I know the truth about this situation except our pod

yeah this one is really good yeah yes and ours will be wise no but I just

think we live in a world where there's the illusion because we know a lot that

we actually and everybody has an opinion and everybody will express their

opinion and can because everybody has a microphone available to them if they

want it Jen. Well another another version says good understanding you know when

you understand something I think that's evidence of someone who listens who

moles who considers who seeks wise counsel someone who really understands a

matter is a person who's very wise. Yeah and and there's something else that came

to mind as we're talking Occam's razor is a way to generally try to find the

truth and Occam's razor believes through the ages that the most obvious way is

probably the correct way the common sense way is probably the right way and I

think that's another way we can generally find God's will because if it's the

common sense way if it seems like it's the right way that's probably the right

way Jen. You know reminds me of an acronym we giggled about earlier K-I-S-S keep

it simple we'll say silly here. It's not always so complicated. Yeah and again

the simplest ways usually the correct way and the common sense way is probably

the right way and I think that's what my dad meant when you pray and you can

see what's the right way you're probably praying the will of God Marilyn. Yeah

I think so David and it's just interesting we almost need to encourage each

other to keep it simple because we're living in a world that just gets more and

more it's a swirl and I'll remind everybody that 1 Corinthians 1433 is still

true God is not the author of confusion what we should we say in response to

that God is the author of what's clear and common sense