Have you heard of the advantages of Gold? The commercials abound. It never goes down in value. Or at least that is what the commercials say. The funny thing about gold is that it has value because we assign it value. It is shiny, it is rare, but what can you really do with it? You can’t eat it when you are hungry. And before we liked shiny things, it was just another rock in the ground.
But wisdom has always been around. Even before there was an “around”, it was around. In the style of a first person narrative, “wisdom” tells its life history. It tells its birth and early childhood. When all of the important parts of creation were happening, wisdom was the one witnessing and participating in the creation. Oceans and mountains, even the dust of the earth, everything that makes up this world, this creation was made as a result of the collaboration of wisdom and God.
You might ask, “Why is this here in Proverbs?” One of the goals of the writer of Proverbs is to help out a young son. He needs to demonstrate that wisdom will serve him well, if he listens to it. If we look at the creation we certainly see an order and beauty to it that only an intelligent and wise Creator could have done. And if wisdom was needed for creation, how much more for our lives!
The same wisdom that was present at creation is available to us for our daily lives. When we need to tap into it, it is right there at our sides.
Wisdom is something that gets absorbed with daily doses (v34). We can’t “carb up” for the next challenge. We must gain wisdom slowly over time. It must be applied the same way. That is one of the distinctions between wisdom and knowledge. We can gain knowledge by cramming. We can’t gain wisdom that way. Wisdom gets picked up and then applied. When it is applied we are ready for the next installment. Until what we have is applied, wisdom is not gained. Knowledge requires no such application.
Is there wisdom that you have not applied in your life? Isn’t it time to do so?
The Arnold Journey 