Listen to the Gambler

Proverbs 20:3 (KJV) It is an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling.

I hope you are familiar with that song, which I think is called, “The Gambler”.  It goes to the effect that you got to know when to hold, know when to fold.  In my mind, it’s Kenny Rogers doing the singing, but since I’m not a big consumer of country or western music, that is just a guess.  It brings a great deal of wisdom to life and it’s almost as if the writer of the song had been reading Proverbs 20.

I find that the CSB brings a bit of a different slant and it’s language.

Proverbs 20:3 (CSB) Honor belongs to the person who ends a dispute, but any fool can get himself into a quarrel.

How often have you found yourself in a disagreement, realizing that the other person is getting more and more angry, knowing that the angrier they get the less they listen, and knowing that they didn’t have a great amount of reasoning ability to start with, and you’re going to lose.  Maybe you won’t lose, but you know you won’t win.  It’s at that point that wisdom kicks in and you need to take the high road.

Taking the highroad can be dangerous because too many times it makes you abandon things which are important, to compromise truth, and walk away from what is right.  The honor here is to find a way to back up and restate things in an acceptable way that in important areas is a valid compromise, but does not desert the truth.

So?  I guess real wisdom will keep you from getting in the dispute in the first place.  Know when to back off.  Know what the real issues are.  Know whom you’re arguing with.