Babbling Fools

The wise are glad to be instructed, but babbling fools fall flat on their faces.

Proverbs 10:8 (NLT)

It’s kind of crazy to see how each one of us approaches life. As a sanguine, I’m pretty comfortable just going with the flow. I’m generally OK if there isn’t a hard-fast plan in place, things will turn out OK. On the flip side, melancholies reading this are yelling at their screen, “No, no, no! There must be a detailed plan.” The cholerics are saying, “Don’t worry I have a plan and know exactly what you should do.” The phlegmatics among us are saying, “Hey, quit with the yelling and just chillax everyone.” We’re all made a bit differently, and, as a result, see things differently. And, that is perfectly OK. We can see the world differently, yet still love one another and even work well together.

Of course, this depends entirely upon whether or not the person is teachable. Having the desire to learn more, to investigate, to gain wisdom is important in this life, regardless of personality type, age, gender, or ethnicity. In fact, I have a saying, “The day we stop learning should be the day that we die.” It’s a bit harsh, but is accurate. We should constantly be striving to learn more, gain knowledge, experience life, grow in wisdom.

King Solomon echoes this sentiment in our verse today when he states, “The wise are glad to be instructed, but babbling fools fall flat on their faces.” Given that he was the wisest man in history, that’s some pretty good advice! We should be glad to learn from one another. We should rejoice that we can gain knowledge and wisdom. We should strive to do our research on topics rather than just regurgitating (it’s the nice way to say vomit) information that we’ve heard others spew.

The opposite of learning is ignorance (the lack of learning). Solomon calls these people “babbling fools.” You’ve probably met someone like this. They go on and on and on as if they are experts in what their describing, yet have no clue about the topic.

In our Christian journey, we are called to be wise learners, not babbling fools. We need to constantly strive to learn more about our Savior, while helping others do so as well. We should seek Him every day, learning more about who He is and who He calls us to be.