RISK ASSESSMENT

RISK ASSESSMENT

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Proverbs 9:10-12 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased. If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it.

 From Adam Clarke’s Commentary on Pr.9:11 - Vice shortens human life, by a necessity of consequence: and by the same, righteousness lengthens it. There is a long addition here in the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate: “He who trusts in falsity feeds on the winds; and is like him who chases the fowls of heaven. He forsakes the way of his own vineyard, and errs from the paths of his own inheritance. He enters also into lonely and desert places, and into a land abandoned to thirst; and his hands collect that which yieldeth no fruit.”

  Do we fear death by sharks when cows and bulls kill more people than those gray finned swimmers? (I personally have been attacked and injured by horn, but though an ocean swimmer, never by teeth.)

 Cow/shark example is not common to most but here’s one I suspect is: Are you or I more likely to be killed or maimed by a terrorist or a fellow citizen? Which do people in your listening, including politicians and newscasters, ballyhoo the most? But what are the actual facts?

  Everybody does it with varying time invested and level of intensity. Some do so stoically in formal manner, corporations being the main objective practitioners of this type. Then there are those that do so subjectively with angst. Among this latter group are those dominated by hyper-emotional risk assessment. Group membership varies from time to time. Then there are those enjoying “the peace that passeth all understanding”. I’ve been a member of every group at one time or another.

  Risk assessment can observably strengthen, weaken, or destroy corporation and/or individual.

  I encourage sensible risk assessment in all areas of life, spiritually foremost.

  Fact: USA road carnage involves a death every 14 minutes, and injury serious enough to require medical attention every 7 seconds. “Put another way, one year of dead and injured on the road represents a casualty count greater than the combined American dead and wounded from every war we’ve ever fought. Driving is our most dangerous battlefield.” (Consumer Reports, October 2016) And this week I read other statistics revealing “distracted drivers” are now a leading contributor to highway and street bloodshed.

  Then there is the spiritually foremost facts explained in God’s Word. One in particular that motivationally came to mind this morning “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews chapter 10)

EBB4

PS. I’m driving to Council Bluffs via interstate today to pickup my and eldest daughter Dawn’s Heartland Christian School plant order.