Can a man carry fire next to his chest
    and his clothes not be burned?
Or can one walk on hot coals
    and his feet not be scorched?
Proverbs 6:27-28

Reflect

When Mom was a little girl, my grandfather joined the U.S. Border Patrol and was stationed in Falfurrias, Texas. She didn’t have a lot of memories about living there, but there was one that definitely stood out.

Mom said that a man with a petting zoo came through town, and he had a variety of different animals in cages. One of them was a squirrel, and it somehow slipped out of its cage and ran up a nearby tree. The man was beside himself because apparently he had trained that squirrel and he didn’t want to lose it.

Mom must have been about five at the time and showed no fear. She offered to climb up the tree and retrieve the man’s pet squirrel, and the man accepted her offer, assuring her that the squirrel was tame and friendly. With that assurance, Mom scrambled up the tree to fetch the squirrel. What happened next was predictable. When she reached the squirrel, trained or not, it did not want to go with her. She emerged from the encounter covered with scratches and bite marks – and a little bit wiser.

The Bible doesn’t have anything to say about playing with squirrels, but it does say something about playing with fire. It poses the questions, “Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned?” and “Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?” Solomon was specifically warning about the dangers of adultery, but the principle applies to plenty of other situations. Some things are dangerous no matter how confidently we approach them. Fire burns, hot coals scorch, and apparently even trained squirrels have their limits.

The book of Proverbs is all about wisdom, and it’s clearly not wise to play with fire because we know we’re going to get burned. But sometimes the danger isn’t quite so obvious, especially when someone else assures us there’s nothing to worry about. Mom wasn’t trying to do anything foolish. She was trying to help someone, and she trusted the word of an adult who supposedly knew his squirrel. Her intentions were good, but good intentions don’t necessarily protect us from bad consequences.

There are things in life that we know are not in our best interest. Wisdom is not only knowing the difference between right and wrong but also between wise and foolish actions. Sadly, foolishness is hardly in short supply. Just go to YouTube and search for “foolish people,” and you’ll get endless opportunities to watch videos about people doing unwise things. (And many of them videoed themselves to ensure that their foolishness would be immortalized. Once upon a time, people did foolish things and hoped nobody noticed. Today, they upload the evidence themselves.)

But Mom’s encounter with the squirrel reminds us that foolish decisions aren’t always made for foolish reasons. Sometimes we’re trying to do something good. Sometimes we’re trusting someone else’s judgment. And sometimes we’re simply too inexperienced to recognize the danger. Being brave doesn’t necessarily mean we’re being wise, and wanting to help doesn’t always mean we’re the right person for the job.

Embrace wisdom. Think about your actions in advance and weigh whether or not they’re worth pursuing. And above all, make sure that none of them are on the level of “playing with fire” or catching a petting zoo squirrel. If what you’re doing has a clear negative outcome – or is likely to show up on an episode of “World’s Dumbest” – reverse course and move in the opposite and wiser direction.

Mom climbed that tree because she wanted to help. She came down having learned that wanting to do the right thing and knowing the right thing to do aren’t always the same. Sometimes wisdom means recognizing the danger before we get burned, bitten or scratched.

And sometimes it means knowing when to leave the squirrel in the tree.