Most of us would say that we want wisdom.  To be wise is to be insightful into the meaning or truth of something, to have a mastery of reality and be able to make good decisions.  To be wise is to gain the guidance by which to navigate life like a ship sailing the seas – avoiding reefs and rocks as one sails to glorious destinations.  How easy is it though to run aground in life in ways that seem dumb in retrospect  but wise before – “If only I would have known…”  Perhaps even more confusing is that deciding which way is right seems more difficult than ever as there are more voices claiming wisdom than ever before.  There seem to be in fact many different “wisdoms.”  Before getting into the nitty-gritty of wisdom – what to do about X, how to handle X – there are two questions that need to be asked first.

1.  Do we actually desire wisdom?  Sounds like a rhetorical question but it isn’t.  In the book of Proverbs wisdom is personified as a woman who is calling out of the street corners for all who would listen – not on a high mountain or deep in a cave or locked within a fortress – on the intersection that you walk by everyday.  There are also other voices calling out as well of course. 

My youngest is about as full of life as you can imagine – being the youngest at his older brother’s school dance didn’t stop him from dominating the dance circle.  He’s also not the greatest at listening and following through but hey, he’s four years old.  Between bold and not listening have come a host of deadly almost-accidents.  To our scolding, Caleb you can’t do that, you could get really hurt…really hurt someone…really damage… he simply responds,  But I didn’t get hurt.

I wonder if in an age of instant access and constant change that our hearts are actually drawn to what we can get away with and what simply works now.  To the challenge that something wasn’t about what is true, beautiful and good we don’t often reply, But I didn’t get hurt and I got to do what I wanted to do.

This begs a second question.

2.  What do truly love/fear?  You can’t read Proverbs and indeed scripture and not pick up that the phrase, The fear of the Lord, is a theme.  Let’s be honest though, it’s a strange phrase in our world.  We can’t understand the call to wisdom though without understanding that what we love/fear has more to do with the direction of our lives and the “wisdom” that we follow than anything else.  It is those things that we run from, fear happening and stand in reverent awe of that define the direction of our lives despite evidence to the contrary.  ‘”Wisdom” then becomes what helps us along that way.  The issue isn’t if we’re influenced by fear/love but what stands above all.

Case study:  Caleb and the 12 Spies, in Numbers 13-14, is a fascinating case study.   You have one tribe/community, taught by the same people, witness to the same miracles, called by the same call and two completely different decisions.  Israel having been delivered dramatically out of slavery by the hand of God is standing on the edge of the promised land – close enough to taste a better future than they could have imagined not long ago.  They send in 12 spies to check things out.  The report – oh, it’s good, it’s really good, there’s just one problem.  It turns out that there were barriers – large men and fortified cities.  The more they talked – the more hysterical they got.  Strong men became supernatural giants, the land became carnivorous, they became like worms, God turned into a tyrant who wanted to kill them and Moses became someone to stone.  The wise thing, then concluded, was to go back to Egypt where things worked and were easy. 

Caleb nearly alone refused to buy into the hysteria declaring that the land was good and that we should go.  What is that Caleb didn’t see the dangers and obstacles?  Of course he did.  He just stood in an awe filled fear of doing anything less than the best that his Creating and Redeeming God would want. 

A commentator suggested that the The fear of the Lord is that affectionate reverence, by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to his Father’s law.  Bridges

As we set the trajectory of our lives individually and communally, it seems that the place to start is not just to ask what is wise but what do we fear?  We all have our lists that we interact with everyday – significance, place in life, being attractive, smart, powerful, stable, successful, in control, right, comfortable.  The question is how we bring those things before our Heavenly Father that he might have the ultimate say.

May we hear the call of wisdom.

Peace :: Jon