Focal passage: Proverbs 8:6-21
Not long ago I returned from a trip to Europe and had brought some leftover coins for my children. My kids are young, so the novelty of foreign coins was lost on them, but they did appreciate comparing sizes and colors with our American coins.
Notably, I noticed how they assigned value based on qualities that didn’t always correspond to their actual worth. I decided to inform them of the actual worth, but they remained thoroughly unconvinced that their method had any flaw.
Wisdom can’t be reduced to possessing knowledge. We’ve got to do something with that knowledge, and we’ve got to do it in a way that navigates the complexities of the world in which we live. It helps to remember that God speaks and provides the wisdom we so desperately need. We find God’s words right, truthful, righteous, lacking deception and perversion – a stark contrast to how we might characterize the speech of mankind! Yet, we find that God doesn’t just leave us with the obvious gulf between our character and His. No, he creates His character in us!
“To fear the Lord is to hate evil,” Solomon tells us. As we grow in the Lord, so too will our wisdom. We are offered the promise of wisdom, “those who search for me find me.” Followers of Jesus enter into relation with Him.
This is a dynamic relationship with the Holy Spirit living in us, sanctifying us daily. Will we trade in the fading treasures of this world for the true riches of God’s wisdom?