Seeking Wisdom

“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth comes knowledge and understand.” Proverbs 2:1-6

If I have to choose one topic that Proverbs focus on, it is wisdom. Time and time again, Proverbs talk about the need for wisdom, learning, and applying that in all its forms. In my current reading of Proverbs the importance of this has become much clearer than any other time that I have read it.

It talks of listening to you parents’ instruction and discipline. If there is one thing we should remember and learn from in our childhood and teenage years it should be that discipline, especially if your parents were believers that raised you up in the way of God.

I think that our parents deserve more respect than we give them. They spend 18 years trying to raise us the best we can and oftentimes we as their children spurn their discipline and ignore their teaching. We should take some time to think about everything they tried to teach us and see if we could learn from those lessons now that we are older.

Something that strikes me in the passage I chose to start with is the fact that we have to seek His wisdom. It says He’ll give it to us, but it does not say He will do it without our wanting it and looking for it. We have to strive to learn from Him. We have to seek for it as for silver and hidden treasure.

Imagine if we actually looked for His wisdom as we would look if we knew a great treasure was hidden near. We would spend hours reading His Word, looking at commentaries, praying and working to do just one thing: gain His wisdom.

Think about it this way, since it may be hard to relate to the treasure analogy. Think about how much time we spend on trying to get money. In America especially, it’s all about the money. We spend half our lives just trying to attain money. Now imagine putting that time and effort into learning about God. WE would fervently be following Him.

And if we seek Him with this fervent attitude, we will find Him. He promises to give knowledge of Him. In verse 6, it says that knowledge and understanding comes from God’s mouth. He is the source of all wisdom, so He the only one we can go to for it.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil.” Proverbs 3:6-7

In short, it’s not about us. We should not rely on ourselves. We should not consider ourselves wise because we are not the source of wisdom. Alone, we are foolish and have no wisdom. We gain wisdom only from God when we seek after Him. So often we think of ourselves as intelligent of “wise” because of everything we have done.

Because that’s what the world teaches us.

We don’t need anyone.

We can do anything on our own as long as we work hard enough.

It’s all about us.

That’s the world we live in.

And it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

We were made to have relationships with others, to work together towards our goals. Most importantly we were created for relationship with God. To rely and lean on Him.

“My son, do not lose sight of these- keep sound wisdom and discretion.” Proverbs 3:21

If we seek His wisdom and he gives it to us, we must never lose sight of it. We should meditate on what He has revealed and use it to the fullest that we can.

We shouldn’t fall back into our complacent lifestyles. We should take what God has revealed and ask Him what He desires for us to do with it. And we should do whatever He tells us to do, even if it’s not what we necessarily what we thought it would be.

And we should never stop seeking. Because no matter how many times you read the bible, you can get something new out of it. Every time. As long as you are seeking.