Today’s post is written by Nate McCartney one of our Elders at FBC.
Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raiser her voice? On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand. Beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud.
Wisdom is available to us. That’s what those first 3 verses say to me. It is there, in the form of friends and family with sound advice, in a pastor’s counsel, from the mouth of our parents and grandparents.
What tends to happen is that we look the other way from wisdom whenever we KNOW what is right, but want to do things our own way. Whenever we KNOW what is right, but still make the wrong decision, we ignore wisdom. There is a distinct difference between Wisdom and Knowledge.
The world today thinks that their KNOWLEDGE is wisdom. The scientists who keep discovering the NEW missing links when their old ones are disproved, ignoring the facts that are there to support what God’s word has to say instead. 1st Corinthians (chapters 1 and 3) talk about how the wisdom of this world is FOOLISHNESS to those who believe in God. The opposite is also true. The world looks at the wisdom in God’s word as foolishness as well. But the difference, again, is that they look at their KNOWLEDGE as wisdom. There is a difference.
Knowledge is having a bunch of INFORMATION about things. Facts. Data. Info. Statistics. Etc. Computers have a lot of knowledge. The internet has PLENTY of knowledge. But we would never say that those things are WISE. Wisdom is what we DO with that knowledge. Wisdom is taking that knowledge and putting it to practical use – practical use that will bring about the best result in the LONG RUN…not the best result right NOW all the time.
We’ve all heard of or know of people who we would say “they are REALLY smart, but they just have no COMMON SENSE!” Verse 5 in Proverbs 8 says “O simple ones, learn prudence; O fools, learn sense!” Wisdom is a challenge. Wisdom is the challenge to take your knowledge and use it to make good decisions. Wisdom is the challenge to LOOK for knowledge when we don’t have it…to be OK with asking for help when we need it.
Wisdom is there if we look for it. Whoever finds it finds life, and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who FAILS to find wisdom brings harm upon himself.
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Nate, you hit this one perfectly for me. “Wisdom is what we DO with that knowledge” It is amazing to me the things people blindly believe… I believe wisdom is also what part of that knowledge we chose to leave lying there….
I remember thinking in High School that by 30 I was going to have it all together… Shew, 30 came…and went… and while I feel like now I am EXACTLY where God has placed me (Thank you Lord!) I know that I would have been her a WHOLE lot sooner had I listened to His wisdom instead of thinking my wordly knowledge was all I needed to make the right decisions…. hindsight is 20/20 though right….
Good one Nate! I get it….completely…