self control: a helpful tool

When my daughter was young I used to read to her before bed, and we worked our way through the entire Little House on the Prairie series. Besides noting The Long Winter was a depressing book choice for a resident of Montana, I also found the Little House books were filled with proverbs. Parents used to regularly feed wisdom to their children in short expressions of truth. When did we stop doing that? 

I’m bringing back the proverb! My family rolls their eyes at me when I throw pithy sayings at them, however, so I mostly proverb myself. These are my favorites:

 

“Slow and steady wins the race”  –when my Monday to-do list takes up more than one page.

“Well begun is half done”  –when my house is such a mess I’m thinking of calling FEMA.

“Haste makes waste”  –when I’m tempted to rush through typing medical reports to the point that running spell checking takes longer than it did to type the reports in the first place. 

“When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.”  (Proverbs 10:19)  –when I need to shut up. 

The Proverbs of Solomon are “for the acquiring of a disciplined and prudent life” (Proverbs 1:3).  A proverb is like a portable micro self lecture to do the right thing, and it fits on a sticky note.  Join me in starting a trend of living by wise, meaningful sayings.