Proverbs 13

We will start again with the sayings relating to righteousness, but there are fewer of them in this chapter, so will look at something else as well.

The righteous:

• Hate what is false (v5)
• Righteousness guards the person of integrity (v6)
• Their light shines brightly (v9)
• Are rewarded with good things (v21)
• Eat to their hearts' content (v25)

So the sayings concerning the righteous start with qualities of the righteous and then turn to the fruit. It is so easy to lose a good reputation, so easy to gain a bad reputation, so we should guard what we have most carefully. We are meant to shine in the world. Indeed the New Testament has several verses on this, in particular Jesus' words about not hiding our light, and Paul's words in Philippians about shining like stars in the darkness. Righteousness will benefit us in life.

There are two key proverbs on fulfilled and unfulfilled desires (v12, 19). Unfulfilled desires are very difficult to deal with, whereas fulfilled one act as a spur to our life, they energise us. So what do we do with unfulfilled desires, for we all have them? Sometimes they are not fulfilled because they would not be good for us, but we need to recognise that there are desires that are good and are not, or at least not yet, fulfilled. We need to recognise the reality of the difficulty and pain that that causes.