By Brenda Cannon Henley
Hurricane Ike brought a lot of tragedy and destruction to the Bolivar Peninsula of Texas. One of the very best results came in the form of friendships made and genuine help offered by faith based groups to our residents. One of my favorite personalities, and it is an enormous one, is James Chambless, affectionately known as Old Hat. He and his family, and team, traveled to Bolivar, at least five different times to clear debris, rebuild, paint, repair plumbing and electricity, and to offer encouragement. James is a writer, speaker, podcaster, and my good buddy. I have asked him to share his knowledge with my readers. Enjoy. His bio is interesting…

James Chambless lived out his boyhood dreams by becoming a fireman, a cowboy, and marrying his sweetheart. He is a Bible teacher who believes that no one has the right to take the Word of God and make it boring. He can be found on Facebook and his stories can be found at The Old Hat Podcast. I think of him as my personal encourager, and he is that to many. He can be reached at 903-520-2360 and [email protected]

My take on Proverbs

Being the father of identical twins has been a never-ending adventure. Not just with the twins, but with other people who interact with them and try to figure out which one is which. The same people who are surprised that I can tell my sons apart from across a crowded stadium also expect me to be able tell them which twin they talked to recently when I was not even there. I almost always can though.

The twins are identical and yet completely unique. “I saw one of your boys at the store the other day, but I don’t know which one it was.” Did he hug you or shake your hand? “Oh! The best hug!” Then I know which one it was. Their teachers in high school sometimes got them confused and would ask me for clues in telling them apart. My best advice was to imagine the boy is holding a book. If he looks like he is about to tell you something he read, then it is Twin A. If he looks like he is about to throw the book as a joke, then that is B. It worked!

The only thing that really helped though was just spending a lot of time with them and getting to know them. They look alike, but they think and act very differently.

I sometimes wonder if King Solomon had twins. In the pages of the book of Proverbs he spends a lot of time making us familiar with two characters that many of us have a hard time telling apart; Wisdom and Folly. He doesn’t just tell us the two choices we have are wisdom or folly. He describes them in detail. They are going to say this, and make you feel this way, and try to get you to do something particular. He even tells us what the outcome is going to be. He not only helps us distinguish wisdom from folly, he tells us which one is going to have the best consequences for us.

Chapter one is written to his child. “My child, listen when your father corrects you. Don’t neglect your mother’s instruction.”

Having spent their lives trying to pass along good advice to my twins, I admire Solomon for taking the time to write down his good advice to his children. It is a lot of work to teach your kids right from wrong. Especially when they hit the years where they become the human repository of all knowledge. Or so they seem to believe.

If you take the time to try and put into writing all of the things you want your children to know, you will truly come to appreciate what a good job Solomon did in putting so much good information into such an easily understandable format. It is pretty obvious when you read these Proverbs to know exactly what he is saying. That is one of the many advantages of being the wisest man in history; excellent communication skills. There were times when I did not need to read a chapter in Proverbs to know what was wise or foolish. That was obvious to me. What I needed was help in explaining the difference to my sons. I still need this wisdom as much as they do.

(Old Hat will continue his thoughts in following columns – BCH)

[August-10-2021]