Proverbs 30:21-23 These can rock our world

²¹ For three things the earth is perturbed,
Yes, for four it cannot bear up:
²² For a servant when he reigns,
A fool when he is filled with food,
²³ A hateful woman when she is married,
And a maidservant who succeeds her mistress.

Are you ever perturbed with someone? What is perturbed? In the Hebrew, this root pictures an earthquake, a shaking of the world. And "bear up" seems to mean that we have a situation like Humpty Dumpty..... our world will get shaken up and not be able to be put back together. 
These things can rock our world.

The first one on the list is a servant who reigns: someone powerless who has become powerful. Someone who has been given more power than they can handle. We all know what happens then . . .chaos! The person unaccustomed to power suddenly has more than they can handle, and they don't handle it wisely. Bad decisions and choices are made, and they surely have consequences. One application of this would be that we need to be careful who we allow to have power over us. Make certain that we are giving obedience to the One who created us, not someone who does not have the wisdom to guide us correctly.

The next thing on our list is a fool who becomes full. What? Well, think about it for a minute. Many times the word "fool" in our studies has meant a stiff-necked, harsh bully. If someone like that becomes "full" it would usually mean full of food, satisfied with the good things on life -- in other words, wealthy. Not needing anything from anyone, and treating them pretty shabbily. (If you would like a study on the word, check out the story of Nabal in I Samuel 25. His name means what he was.) How do we treat the people who need us more than we need them? Are we harsh and mean-spirited like Nabal, or are we compassionate, following the example of our Lord?

What about the hateful woman in verse 23? I think that the writer must have been thinking about a woman who would disguise her rough edges or her real feelings, until she "hooked" her husband. Then after they were married, she didn't need to be so nice any more . . . she could let her real self show. Hmmm, how many of us treat our spouses in ways that we NEVER would have, before we were actually married? Do we speak to them in ways that we would not have spoken while we were courting or dating?

The last one on the list reminded me of Sara, Abraham's wife. The verse mentions "a maidservant who displaces her mistress." Remember what Sara did? She jumped ahead of God, trying to provide Abraham with an heir. Since she was struggling (for years) to become pregnant, she told Abraham to take her maidservant, Hagar, and Hagar did conceive and Ishmael was born. Along the way we see the relationship between the servant and mistress sorely strained -- lots of resentfulness and lots of looking down noses, too! There was strife and fighting, and even a dramatic story of being thrown out of the camp into the desert. Why did all this happen? Because Sara became impatient for God's promise to come to fulfillment.  Ouch!  I have to be honest, here, I have done that, too. Impatience is one of my problems, that is for sure. Do you share that problem? We need to rest in His promises, not be restless in them! He will deliver and be faithful -- that is His character, just as He is holy. He cannot go against that.

For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. Psalm 33:4

These four things can rock our world -- we need to be careful that we don't cause an earthquake ourselves!