Borrower Nor Lender Be

In my daily Bible reading, I come across many witty sayings. Some are witty, some are thought-provoking, and others…
Back in the day—or better yet—back in MY day, we learned witty sayings. Often those sayings came from none other than the famous Benjamin Franklin also at times known as Poor Richard.
In my daily Bible reading, I come across many witty sayings. Some are witty, some are thought-provoking, and others are poignant. My first book title (If I Should Die) came from the children’s prayer If I should die before I wake, I pray dear Lord, my soul to take…
The second book title, from the book which I’m currently preparing to release in November, comes from Ezekiel 33:32 “And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.”
The short title is, As A Lovely Song. It is a continuation of the MacDonald family saga and involves Seth and his wife. The lovely song is their song and this is their story.
I do include many of my treasures in my writing that I find in my daily Bible reading such as the lovely song, or the reference to ‘tears in a bottle,’ or ‘reaping the whirlwind.’
The one I’ve chosen for today is one I’ve come across several times in the past readings and it always gives me not just a moment of pause, but a chuckle of agreement.
“Jeremiah 15:10 Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.”
How absolutely hilarious. There are days when people at social events are friendly, but more often when I find myself in social situations I have the same feeling that Jeremiah expresses here.
It may be from something innocent, and I on occasion wonder if I have mustard on my nose or somesuch infraction. Then there are the days when I open my mouth and…
For instance, many years ago we began homeschooling our children. We had spent many hours at our state capitol building speaking to our legislators on behalf of our right to choose the type of schooling for our children.
During our forays into the political world, we saw many of these politicians up close and their habits, beliefs, and whatnot. It goes without saying we were and still are somewhat conservative. Old Fuzzy was filling the pulpit of a congregation shortly thereafter and unbeknownst to me or us, the congregation was a bit on the unconservative side.
During a governor’s race, one of the political leaders was running for governor and someone in the news threw out the accusation that the candidate was ‘a big spender.’ Something several from the congregation were discussing. As I listened to their rhetoric my mouth opened and the truth came out.
I said, ‘well I’ve seen him in action. He is a big spender.’ There were a few other incidents of like happenings where my experience as a homeschool parent and our work at the local and state level served to make me popular.
I was so popular to the point that when I opened my mouth on those occasions, people would sidle away from me by several steps.
Truth—truth doesn’t always make us popular, but that’s the way things are. It didn’t make Jesus popular either.
John 8:
32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.