RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE GRAPES

"Nine bucks? For GRAPES?!?"

I face-palmed big time as I stared at the receipt. And maybe you've done it, too--grabbed a bag of grapes and tossed them into the cart with no regard of the price per pound, the weight, or the final cost. 

And the result that day was one very expensive snack for the kiddos. I seriously considered standing on the street corner, trying to sell those grapes for a buck a piece just to recoup at least some of my money. 

 

Proverbs 5 speaks of a woman who gives no thought to her ways.  She doesn't CONSIDER (palas, in Hebrew) what she is doing. The translation means to WEIGH IT OUT.  Like if she had weighed her decisions, she might have chosen differently.  Spoken differently.  Done differently.  A weight of what was at stake would have led to a calculation of the eventual cost, and I'm guessing she would have concluded it simply wasn't worth the high ticket price. 

 

I've gotta tell ya, I do not want to be this woman.  I want to give thought to my ways.  I want to consider.  I want to weigh it all out and decide whether or not I really want to pay for what I decide.  Do I really want the harvest of what I'm planting?  And have I even given that 5 minutes of thought? Scripture says her ways are crooked and she doesn't even know it!  I'll say it again, I don't want this to be my story!

 

I want to leave a different legacy than this.  I want to be calculating--and while I know that word holds such a negative connotation, suggesting that someone is a schemer, that's not what I long for at all.  I DO long to be a woman who considers, who CALCULATES the cost of her decisions.  I don't want to end up with a basket full of a whole lotta mess I never wanted, and a high bill to pay. 

 

Finances.  Words spoken.  Relationships.  Time spent.  Too often we do not consider our ways. 

 

Let us be people rich in consideration. Ones who give great thought to our ways. 

 

Jesus, let it be.