The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. Proverbs 1:7

People tend to love living in excess. Tell them too many calories could lead to obesity and heart disease they tell you to mind your business.  Tell them sleeping with random people could lead to STDs and unwanted pregnancies, they call you a prude.  Tell them partying all the time without caring about the future will lead to a wrecked life, they call you boring.  But soon their voices fall silent.

Some passages in Proverbs speak to so many of the calamaties and maladies that plague us today.  Even if you are not a Christian or a spiritual person, you can see key points being made.  In chapter one, a warning is made to the youth: Do not fall in step with those who have no morals. Fools who chase ill-gotten gain.  Eventually their actions will lead to their own demise.

How many of you know people who live their lives in the streets?  With a criminally driven profit motive?  Is it not rare that these people reach a ripe old age?  Everyone blinded by quick cash tend to also see a quick fall. I know too many people who started out pushing weight and ended up being on the same stuff they once sold.

Goons rarely live to get old.  Heck,they barely make it to middle age.  So what draws you to that life?  It's fun.  It's exciting.  It's glamorous?  Sure, the tricks of the world always seem that way until you find yourself caught up in it.  Ever notice how dead people living the fast life look?  Eyes bloodshot, skin sullen, they look old before their time. 

By the age of 25 (if they reach it) their bodies are run down from too much sex, too many partners, too much alcohol, too many hits from a philly blunt.  Yeah they laugh and say how great it is to be part of the life.  They call you lame.  But it's you sitting at their funerals when that life comes crashing down. 

I see people walking the streets, begging for money, asking for a crumb of bread.  And I wonder who they were before life took its toll on them.  Were they the dudes who thought school was for simps and going to church was for squares?

Call me judgmental, but I'm not the one doing the judging.  The life you live speaks volumes.  I see you in court wondering who fathered your child and screaming about some man who won't pay child support.  Or begging for peace in your home when the dope boy has brought violence into your life.  And I thank God that I had a foundation.  The life that looked so cute back in the day...pushed me to do something different. 

Just seems like folks fear living a long life more than they fear dying.  So they try to end life as fast and furious as they can.