Proverbs 19:3 “ The foolishness of man perverteth his way: and his heart fretteth against the LORD.”
The foolishness often addressed in Proverbs refers to the unwillingness and lack of desire to learn about the statutes, ordinances, and truths of God. The foolishness is this: “if someone knows of Jehovah, why would they pursue anything else?” It is folly for someone who was washed in the blood of Christ, sealed with the Holy Spirit and who has tasted and seen that the Lord is good to pursue anything else but the perfect will of God for their life. Yet so many do. They know enough to realize their need for the Savior, but wallow in the folly and never see the need to allow Christ to live through them.
Those that know God, and refuse to seek His face in pursuit of a holy life, fret against the Lord. That word fretteth means to rub against. In order to rub against something, you must are not moving in perfect synchronicity with it. The only time you will not have friction between you and God is when you are careful to move in perfect unison with the direction of the Holy Spirit. Anything but perfect unison leads to irritation.
Perhaps the irritation comes from unevenness, or a lack of development in spirituality. If our faith is wanting, it will leave crevasses where there should be matured faith and growth in your spirituality. Gaps and uneven surfaces lead to failures in stability. When you go to lean on your faith, it may crumble. All the while, we are irritating the very God of heaven.
Maybe we fret against God but having foreign material in our life. When sin and inquiry are harbored in our life, it is similar to rolling SillyPutty in a sand box and then rolling it between your hands. When repentance is no longer a priority in our hearts, we begin collecting abrasive materials that test the long suffering of God. Do we realize that having unconfessed sin and iniquity in our heart pains the Holy Spirit because we cannot have fellowship with the Lord that sought us out to restore such fellowship? That fretting is paining the Savior that forgave us of our sin in the first place, because we reject His grace and mercy in order to turn back to the life we had before.
Sometimes that fretting is manifested as an impairment. By no means are we stronger than God to overcome Him, but we can commit the sins of grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit. By clinging to our own will and refusing to submit to the will of the Father, we dare God to remove us from the way. We tread the same path as Jonah and rebel in hopes of never having to submit towards God.
The fretting could also mean to make angry, vex, or cause ripples to form on a still surface of water. All point to the same thing. A Christian that has no desire to learn what God would have them to do, how the Lord would have them do it, and the timing in which Jehovah would have it be done becomes an irritation to God. For 40 years the stiff-necked of Israel vexed God and prevented God from delivering them into the land where He promised to provide for them. Today, there are many Christians wondering through wildernesses because of their folly and all the while they vex the Spirit which calls them towards a better life which has fellowship with their Heavenly Father.
Your fellowservant in Christ,
Bro. Jordan Foster
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