Reboot your Providential Guidance System

(Proverbs 2:17 KJV)  Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.

I am sure that you have always noticed this, but I recognized it for the first time this morning.  Again I ask, why did you never point it out to me.  I thought we were friends.  I speak, of course, about the pronoun “her.”  Every time I have read this before I have assumed it was the man who was abandoning the woman he married when she was young and is now going for a trophy wife.  One simple pronoun tells me I have not been paying attention.

This is a case of women walking away.  We have a rash of that today.  One of the products of equality is that not only men are being absentee parents now.

The KJV has a better word here for my point today.  Instead of the “companion” (441) of the NASB it has “guide.”  Both words appear in the other translations I consulted.  Adam Clarke’s commentary gave in interesting insight based on that word.  He says this could refer to the young woman who deserts the teaching and guidance of her father and goes out into the world to taste of its promises.  Unfortunately the promises turn out to be lies.

We could paraphrase Jesus and have a parable of the Prodigal Daughter based on this.  How often do our children go off to college and leave behind all they have been taught?  Perhaps you are one of those who left the God of your parents and have not come back yet.  It is never too late to repair the damage.

So?  If this does not apply to you, it probably does to someone you know.  Pray for them.  Be a witness.  If you are one of the wayward ones, maybe it is time to look at your life and ask yourself if all of those promises of self-esteem and self-actualization are really working out.  It could be time to look, reflect, repent and obey.