Reading… and Thinking

Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow,
    So a curse without cause shall not alight.

— Proverbs 26:2 (NKJV)

Every one of us is sometimes misunderstood. What we meant as a compliment is taken as an insult. An innocent action is interpreted as having malicious intent. Silence is taken as disapproval or anger, when in truth we were just distracted, or simply had nothing to say.

And then the person who misunderstands becomes upset. Sometimes we never even know (or don’t know till later) that we have caused offense. And sometimes, in spite of our reassurances, the “victim” insists upon continuing in their misunderstanding. They may curse us, out loud or in their heart.

(The word for “curse” here means to vilify, that is to speak evil of someone. It doesn’t mean calling down evils upon them. Nothing spooky – just saying bad things and harboring bad thoughts.)

And there is another type of situation where we may be “cursed”. There are times when simply bearing witness to what is true and right provokes a curse, from someone who prefers darkness to light. When we say that wrongdoing is sin, when we point out falsehood, sometimes people get very upset, and curse us.

In either of these cases, we are likely to get upset ourselves. We don’t like to be falsely accused, we don’t like to see the right trampled. It stings when people say nasty things to us, or about us.

The proverb teaches us that sometimes we just have to let it go. A baseless curse, for whatever reason, won’t settle on us. (Unless, of course, we welcome it in and let it have an effect on us.) The best we can do it to pray for enlightenment for the one who has misunderstood or who has embraced darkness. And then go on doing the best we can, on our part, to “do good to all men”.