#3.4.1 – Week 1 page
As you habituate your chosen virtue, consolidate your understanding of prudence.
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During this first week of habituation, you are invited to reflect further on the virtue of prudence.
Habituation check-up
Before you proceed, take a moment to check-up on how your habituation plan of your chosen virtue is going. Which of the following best describes this week.
- I habituated well…
- I was distracted…
- I forgot to habituate…
Take a few moments to journal about this week. What did you do and how did it go?
If you are working on a growth project with a group (physical or virtual), take a few moments to be accountable to each other and encourage each other.
Now think about the virtue of PRUDENCE
The purpose of this section (and of those in the posts to follow for the next 15 weeks) is to consolidate your understanding of the virtues as you habituate. Although you have chosen to habituate one particular virtue, there is nothing stopping you from reflecting on other virtues, which is what we will do.
In this first week we will think about the virtue of PRUDENCE. This is actually a very poorly understood virtue, but it is one of the Cardinal virtues.
Here is a brief description:
The virtue of prudence is best described as the practical wisdom that helps you discern which virtues are necessary as you meet life’s unpredictable circumstances. In other words, you are prudent if you have discernment in your choices, especially as they relate to virtue. If the virtues are like different tools that hang on a handyman’s belt, prudence is the virtue that allows us to deploy the right tool at the appropriate time.
So, for example, prudence helps the soldier decide when it is time for courage and when it is time for patience. It helps the care-worker know when it is time for compassion and when it is time for truthfulness. It helps the leader feel when it is time for humility and when ambition is called for.
In the words of Ecclesiastes, prudence helps you discern when it is time to sow and when it is time to reap, when it is time to laugh and when to cry, when it is time to gather and when to scatter.
Does this describe you? If so, well done, you are a prudent person.
The vices that oppose PRUDENCE
The vices that oppose prudence are cunning, which is finding ways to benefit only oneself; cleverness, which gives the appearance of wisdom but has no substance; negligence, which gives up on seeking the best in every situation; stupidity, which always does the same things in every circumstance; and over-simplicity, which is happy for quick, superficial solutions based on hearsay or personal opinion.
Do any of these describe you? If they do, and if your score in the Virtue Test was low in this virtue, then you may want to consider more work on this virtue in the future growth plans.
Search the internet
Take a few moments now to search the internet and find out more about the virtue of prudence. It is a good idea to take some notes about what you find.
Bible reflection
The Bible can inspire further reflection on the virtue of prudence. Try the following:
- WORK IN PROGRESS