Buy the truth and do not sell it; get wisdom, discipline, and understanding (Proverbs 23:23).

It's good for me to remember that I entered into this Proverbs 365 project for my own benefit:  to gain wisdom, discipline, and understanding for my own life.  Any incidental benefits that may come out of it -- for others following along on the internet, for any future sermons that may be developed out of this year of study, for any books that may eventually be published -- are secondary.  Icing on the cake.  Gravy on the mashed potatoes.

It's such an easy mistake:  to read the Bible and see how other people really need to take these words to heart.  "Ah, yes, this is just the thing that my wife needs to hear..." or "Ooh -- this is the perfect rebuttal for that argument I was just having with my brother..." I can be so happy and so quick to apply the Bible's wisdom to the lives of my loved ones (and hated ones too, I guess) -- but I can have such a hard time applying the Bible's wisdom, particularly when it's challenging, corrective stuff that I need to hear in my own life, my own weakensses, my own faith and doubt.  Jesus' Sermon on the Mount graphically demonstrates the absurdity of such an others-focused approach to wisdom.  "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3-4)... But I do it anyway -- swinging around, ol' Plank-Eye, cracking people on the back of the head, when I'm the one who needs to be examining myself!

It's important to remember that I am the customer.  I am the end-user.  I am not some sort of middle-man, buying up supply in bulk and then packaging it in individually-sized portions so I can sell it at a modest margin.  No -- I am the customer, the client, the student!  I need to keep challenging myself -- particularly in the context of this Proverbs 365 -- and let the incidental benefits fall where they may.

So help me, God...