Wisdom

James 1:5 “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” NIV

Have you ever considered that wisdom is so important that a whole book of the Bible is dedicated to it? In the book of Proverbs the author spends much of the first quarter of the book talking about the value of finding and seeking wisdom. When we combine it with what James adds in his letter to the early Jewish Christians, we have something that every person should strive for.

As we read further on in the Bible about wisdom we learn some wonderful things. Wisdom is given freely as well as the fact that it is given generously. It is given and works in conjunction with our faith and it should be accepted with confidence that faith provides.

We are also left with the impression that God wants to give us faith.  There is no skill testing question.  There is no “it’s behind door number one, two, or three”. There is no earning involved and there even is no “it is only given to the elite physically, socially or intellectually”. In fact, the smartest people are not always the wisest people. Since wisdom is basically the proper application of the knowledge we have, we are in continuous need of wisdom as we work, and as we make decisions in our ministry, in our personal lives and with our family.

I used to believe that my father was one of the wisest people I knew.  He could predict the ending of a movie before it had ended. It was only later that I found that he had seen the movie years before I was born and was impressing me with previously obtained knowledge. Now that may answer a few questions about me when you look at my father’s parenting skills, however, I think there is a principle here that gives us confidence. The God we serve does not only know the past and the present, He is Lord of all time and space. In that case I want to put my life decisions in the hand of the one who already knows the future. It would be crazy to do otherwise, don’t you think?