Prudence

I just emailed this to some of my friends and family, so if you are reading this for the 2nd time, sorry, but I just wanted to share it here too.
I just wanted to share something that the Lord just revealed to me in His word.

Proverbs 1:1-4 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight, for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to the simple.....

There's no telling how many times I have read this and of course wisdom always sticks out, because that's what proverbs are for, right, attaining wisdom. Well, tonight the word prudent seemed to jump out at me. So, I had to dig into it. I used this link http://1828.mshaffer.com to look the word up (the link is to Webster's 1828 dictionary). Here are some definitions that I found there.

Prudent - cautious; circumspect; practically wise; careful of the consequences of enterprises, measures or actions; cautious not to act when the end is of doubtful utility or probably impracticable. (See Prov. 14 &22)

Prudence - implies more caution and reserve than wisdom; it is excercised more in forseeing and avoiding evil than in devising and executing that which is good.

Circumspective - looking round every way; cautious; careful of consequences; watchful of danger.

Ok, so I get how important it is for us to be wise and how much we need to ask the Lord for His wisdom, but how many unpleasant situations might I have avoided if I had coupled asking for wisdom with asking for prudence. How many times have I said or done the wrong thing, when a little prudence might have gone a long way. Oh, to be constantly aware of the consequences of my words and deeds. So many times the words are out of my mouth and then I think of how they may have sounded or I act out of haste and then panic because now I have to figure out how to fix what I've done. I know this is so simplistic, but that's me (I was thankful for the reference to the simple), so many of the things of the Lord are new to me. It seems so often my biggest revelations are the simplest ones. I don't know if this was for anyone else or not, but I felt compelled to share. I'm going to post this definition somewhere where I can read it often and I'm going to be prayingl for wisdom.....and for prudence.