Each day during the  month of March we will be sharing a devotional from a booklet written by Steve Love. Steve is a member of Canton First and a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor. If you would like a complete PDF of this devotional, it can be downloaded here.

Day 8

Proverbs 16:23 (New International Version)

 A wise man’s heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction.

     Proverbs say a “wise man’s heart guides his mouth.”   In the heart/mind we find what wisdom we possess.  Some do have more wisdom than others.  That’s a fact of life for people with or without a brain injury.  What is important is how we use the wisdom we do have.   The words we speak show the quality of our wisdom.  Intelligence is no measure of true wisdom.   Intelligent people without brain injury often lack wisdom to make the good choices in life.  

     The heart/mind filled with wisdom guides our mouth.   We who have a brain injury know that the words we speak do not always show the wisdom we have.  Our brain does not allow us to allow us to “speak our mind.”  We might have problems communicating what our minds want to say.  I have trouble finding the words I want to use to express my ideas.  At times my brain puts another word in place of the right word in what I hear or say.  In conversation, I can fall behind as I struggle with what I thought I heard or what I meant to say.  My injured brain gets in the way of what I want to say.

     As children, we had to learn how to respond to others when they spoke to us, and now we had to learn anew.  Our brains do not help make the right choice in all situations.  We must rely on those around us to help us make the right choice. We can learn from them, and our wisdom will increase.   Our wisdom is seen through what we do, “and his lips promote instruction.”  Instruction or teachings, comes to our lips from a wise heart.

    What are you teaching or instructing?   We are now an expert, one we would not have chosen to become, but we are an expert on brain injuries.  We are the ones who can share with other about what it is like to live with a brain injury and how they can avoid becoming a person with a brain injury.    We also know God and have expires His great love.  I know the only reason I am alive today is because of my wife Barbara’s and other prayers.  I know that the life I am now living should not have happen for me.  The best I should have achieved is living life in a comatose state.  It is though prayer of others and that I believe God has a task for me in this world. Today I can have a life with meaning.

     The task He has for me.   “A wise man’s heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction.”  Instructing others about God and bring awareness about brain injury is the work God wants me to do.  God did not cause me to have a brain injury, but He can use my knowledge of Him, His word, and brain injury to “promote instruction.” 

Pray and thank God for the wisdom He has given to us and how He can use us to help other.

Pray and thank God for His love and care for us.

Pray and ask God to help us in the instructing of other about God and brain injury.