A little bit of wisdom
Emily, Matthew, and I have been reading the Little House on the Prairie/Laura Ingalls Wilder book “By the Shores of Silver Lake” (at a rate of about a chapter a week - rather slowly) and a few weeks ago, Laura (the young girl) asked her Pa why he didn’t go stand up to a riotous group of men (she thought he ought to b/c they were behaving badly and needed someone to set them straight -and in her mind her Pa could do anything). He responded “Better to be a live dog than a dead lion.” They asked me to explain this to them, which I did, and they laughed and they have since quoted it a number of times - probably three or so times a week. They just love this saying - they think it’s quite funny (though I’m not sure they really understand it).
Well, go figure, last night I was reading my Bible and there it was: Ecclesiastes 9:4b says exactly this (though the context is different). Amazing the wisdom you find in God’s word, and amazing how often it’s quoted in “great” literature without us even knowing it! I shared that with the kids today and they were pretty excited to have done verse memorization without even trying. What a wonderful thing to be able to share with them practically how all wisdom is from God!