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God places great value on wisdom
God puts an incredibly high value on wisdom. Proverbs says it is more valuable than silver and gold and more precious than rubies. Nothing we could desire compares with it. Some Old Testament books are known as the wisdom books—Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon—but wisdom isn’t confined to them. It runs through all of Scripture.
When I think about that, I think about the way we search for gold. You have to dig for it. You have to believe that something valuable is there before you’re willing to put in the time and effort required to find it. In much the same way, wisdom requires us to seek it. We have to give it our attention, spend time in God’s Word, listen to people who have walked with God before us, and be willing to learn from the things we experience.
But once you find wisdom, it becomes something you carry with you the rest of your life. It’s treasure you store in your heart. No one can take away what you have learned through walking with God.
Wisdom helps us live our lives well. And sometimes, wisdom comes from realizing that the way we have been doing something isn’t working. At times the problems we face in life are not the result of circumstances outside our control. Sometimes our own foolishness gets us into trouble. We make poor choices, say things we shouldn’t say, ignore what we know to be right, or follow our own desires instead of God’s leading. But when we are willing to learn from our mistakes rather than simply repeating them, those experiences lead us to discover wisdom.
We never reach a point where we are finished growing. We will always have room to grow in wisdom. The older I get, the more I’m aware of my need for wisdom.
I have been serving the Lord for more than thirty years now, and sometimes I look back at my life and think I should be so much further along than I am. I can see areas where I have grown, and I am thankful, but I also know my own thoughts and reactions. I know how easily I can become frustrated or offended. I know there are things God does that I don’t understand and things I wish He would do differently. I know that there are still moments when I want my own way. There are plenty of areas in my life where I still need to grow.
And that is okay, because growing in wisdom is part of growing with Jesus.
Wisdom grows as we walk with God
Proverbs 8 gives us a beautiful picture of wisdom, personifying it as a partner with God in creation. Wisdom is pictured as a master builder, walking alongside the Lord as He forms the world and delights in what He has made. It reminds us that wisdom isn’t simply a collection of good ideas or helpful advice. Wisdom belongs to God. He is the source of it, and He wants to share it with His children.
First Corinthians 1:24 tells us that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And when we read about the woman of Proverbs 31, we are told that “she opens her mouth with wisdom.” I love that verse because I know how often I have opened my mouth and had something other than wisdom come out. There have been words I’ve spoken that I wished I could take back, but once they’re out, they’re out. So one of my prayers is that, more often than not, when I open my mouth, good words will come out—words that are full of wisdom and grace.
This is part of what it means to walk with Jesus. Walking with Him is like walking a path. There are turns we didn’t expect, valleys we didn’t anticipate, and mountaintops that we wish would last forever. There are seasons when we feel very close to the Lord and other seasons when we suddenly realize that we’ve wandered far away from Him.
Sometimes we turn around and realize that we have lost our way completely.
But God is gracious. When we call out to Him, He doesn’t abandon us because we wandered. He takes us by the hand and leads us back onto the path, and He does it with wisdom. When you love someone, you want to give them good things, and wisdom is one of the good gifts God gives to His children.
We need to be careful where we seek wisdom
There are different kinds and sources of wisdom, and this is where the story of Eve becomes especially important.
Eve desired wisdom. Genesis 3 tells us that when she looked at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she saw that its fruit was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom. There is nothing wrong with wanting wisdom. The problem was where she went looking for it.
The serpent had captured her attention which gave him the opportunity to deceive her. He questioned God’s goodness, suggesting that perhaps God was keeping something good from her. Then he contradicted God’s Word and told her that she would not die if she ate from the tree. He offered her another source of wisdom, and she believed him.
Not every source of wisdom is from God.
We live in a world full of voices telling us how to live, what to believe, what will make us happy, how to solve our problems, and what we should pursue. Some of those voices may offer genuinely helpful information, but information and wisdom are not the same thing. First Corinthians 8:1 tells us that knowledge can puff us up. We can know a great deal and still not be wise.
Wisdom begins with believing God and obeying Him.
Eve gained knowledge of good and evil, but she did not gain the wisdom she was looking for. Instead, she listened to a voice that was not from God. Her desire for wisdom was not the problem; the source was.
We have to remember that today. We can read a book, listen to a podcast, ask someone for advice, or learn from another person’s experience, and those things can all be valuable. But ultimately, we have to learn to distinguish between wisdom that is from above and wisdom that is not.
Learning to recognize wisdom from above
James gives us a very helpful picture of this distinction. He describes a kind of wisdom that is earthly, sensual, and devilish, and then contrasts it with the wisdom that comes from above. The wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruit, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
That gives us something to look for.
There is wisdom we gain through experience. If we live long enough, we will hopefully learn some things simply because we have walked through them. We have made mistakes and discovered their consequences. We have watched other people make mistakes and learned from them. We have walked through seasons that taught us things we could never have learned from a book.
This is one of the great gifts of growing older.
I think about my own children. There are things I want to tell them because I have already been down that road. I’ve already made mistakes. I’ve already experienced the pain that can come from certain choices, and I would love for them to avoid that pain. Sometimes they listen to me, and sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, they may have to learn the lesson themselves.
That is the difference between hearing wisdom and applying wisdom. We can receive wisdom from someone else, but it doesn’t become our wisdom until we actually put it into practice.
And then there is another kind of wisdom that we cannot earn through experience at all. It is the wisdom God gives when we ask Him for it.
James tells us that if anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously and without finding fault. I love that promise because it means that when we find ourselves in a situation we don’t know how to handle, we don’t have to pretend we have all the answers.
We can simply ask.
“Lord, give me wisdom.”
Sometimes that wisdom will come through Scripture. Sometimes it will come through a conversation with someone who has walked with God. Sometimes it will come through something we read. And sometimes God seems to simply drop wisdom into our hearts at exactly the moment we need it.
That is a gift from God.
Wisdom keeps us ready for Jesus
But what is the purpose of wisdom?
One of the most popular episodes I have ever recorded was an episode about the ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom. Jesus described five as wise and five as foolish, and the difference between them came down to preparation. The wise ones did what they needed to do to be ready when the bridegroom arrived.
That is ultimately what wisdom is about – preparing to meet Jesus by living a life that’s pleasing to Him.
He told us that He would return, and because He has promised to come again, we want to live ready for Him. We want to keep our eyes on Him rather than becoming distracted by everything else competing for our attention.
The enemy would love to distract us. He would love for us to become discouraged because our prayers haven’t been answered yet, because we are still struggling with something we thought we would have overcome by now, or because following God hasn’t produced the results we thought it would produce. He wants us to wonder whether God’s way is really worth following.
But wisdom says, “Keep walking.”
Keep seeking Jesus. Keep believing God. Keep obeying His Word. Keep your eyes on the One you’re following.
The goal isn’t to become the woman who knows everything or always has the right answer. The goal is to become a woman who knows Jesus, trusts Him, listens to Him, and follows Him.
That is wisdom.
I still want to be a woman of wisdom
I know now that becoming a woman of wisdom doesn’t mean that I will never make another foolish decision or say something I regret. It doesn’t mean I will always understand what God is doing or that I will never wander from the path. It means that when I do, I want to recognize it. I want to be humble enough to turn around, ask God for wisdom, and let Him lead me back.
I want to keep learning from the people God has placed in my life. I want to learn from my mistakes instead of repeating them. I want to know God’s Word well enough to recognize when something doesn’t agree with it. I want to be discerning about the voices I allow to influence me, because I know that not every voice offering wisdom is offering the wisdom that comes from above.
Most of all, I want to keep walking with Jesus.
When all is said and done, that is what this life is about. We are learning to follow Him now as we prepare for the day when we will see Him face to face. One day the Bridegroom will come, and I want to be ready.
I want to be a woman of wisdom.
And I have a feeling that, until the day I see Jesus, I will still be becoming one.
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