Proverbs 30:33 Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife
So, none of us know the future, or so we say. Yet there are times you actually do know the future. For instance, if I were to walk out onto a second story balcony and fling myself off, I know the future. Now, I may not know exactly what is going to happen subsequently, like what will happen in the ten minutes after I jump, but if there were ten people present who were my friends, I could probably guess what they would do in the subsequent ten minutes after I jump. You see, some things are just inevitable. Sometimes you do know the future.
I love Proverbs 30:33 because it is a picture, a truth that is also a very clear picture of something that is undeniable. The Bible says, “Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.” These are things that have a sureness, a surety about them. If I churn milk, I will produce butter. If I wring the nose, I’ll bring forth blood. If I force anger, I’m going to bring forth strife. In other words, some actions produce inevitable results. So, it behooves us to pay attention to the things that we actually know.
First of all, pay attention to the past. In verse 13 it says, “There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes.” It talks about a generation who devour the poor and do not do what is right. It strikes me that there is a lot of history behind us, yet history is somewhat cyclical, that is to say, what has happened and is happening again will produce the exact same results. Here is a young man who is fourteen years old. He doesn’t have to be a genius or fifty years old to know what history is and what it has produced to know that the same things can happen again. So much of what we see in the world today seems like a complete repeat of the history of fifty years ago.
We often hear the word “unprecedented.” We hear people say, “This is unprecedented weather,” or we talk about an “unprecedented political situation.” The fact of the matter is that very few things in this world are truly unprecedented. There may be things to which we have not given attention, but they are not unprecedented. So, pay attention to the past.
Pay attention to the present. Think of your actions. What am I actually doing right now? Albert Einstein is supposed to have said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So, pay attention to the past. Learn from it. Pay attention to the present. What am I actually doing right now?
Sometimes we don’t hear ourselves. We say and think things, but we are not self-aware enough to know what we are actually doing in the present. That is important because the present will certainly produce certain inevitable results in the future, at least in some cases. So, I should pay attention to the present.
Then, I should pay attention to the future. My grandfather used to say about troubled campers at the Bill Rice Ranch, “I can write his story.” He wasn’t angry at the camper or writing him off, but he was saying, “I’ve seen this exact same scenario play out over and again. This might be a new young person, but he is doing the same things I’ve seen done before and they will produce the same results as ever they have.”
When I was a kid, I would watch a drama and my dad would tell me what was about to happen. I would say, “Dad, how did you know that?” My dad would always say, “I wrote the story.” Now, he didn’t actually write the story, but what he was saying was that the consequences of what was being depicted was going to be inevitable.
My grandfather on my mom’s side was a third generation South Dakota farmer. Those were some tough people in South Dakota. Those people staked their livelihood on the fact that you will reap what you sow. You put in corn at the right time and you are going to get nothing but corn when harvest time comes. So, Proverbs 30:33 gives us a specific warning about anger, arguments, and fighting, but the broader principle is to never ignore the inevitable and to never count God out.