Proverbs 23:9
"Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words."
There are clearly people who you should not tell your wise plans to – those who are confirmed in their selfishness, impulsiveness, rebelliousness, cynical nature, and greed. Remember the essence of wisdom is finding and moving forward with a triple-win decision in which God wins, others win, and you win. The essence of being a fool is being self-focused. The wins in a wisdom scenario are usually less spectacular and intensely pleasurable than going just for a personal victory that the fool wants. So this causes the fool to disregard the wise solution because it is not a big enough win for them personally.
The foolish person who has never considered letting themselves have a lesser win so that others can also win and God can be glorified, tends to see any plan that doesn’t maximize their win, their want, and/or their pleasure as a loss. They usually cannot see a team win or a community win. So when the wise person spends the time to think, listen, plan, pray, and develop a really good triple-win that allows everyone to win, its wisdom is completely lost on the foolish person. Solomon says there is very little value in sharing the wise plan with them because they will despise its wisdom.
Notice what this proverb tells us: Do not even let them overhear your wise planning for they will not only dismiss it, they will despise it and ridicule it as well as turn many people away from its wisdom by their derision. Even if they are not part of the planning process but just overhear a wise plan, they will jump in and knock it down because it does not aim at the level of pleasure, gain, or status that they want. So be guarded with your wise plan is what Solomon is saying. The selfish person should hear about it after it is being implemented because they will be against it no matter what.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz