Looking for Wisdom

Maybe you’ve been there—sitting alone, asking God to speak to you, because you’ve got a decision to make. This decision would be easy if one of the options clearly violated the commands of God. Say for example, the decision in question was whether or not you should go to your small group or rob the convenience store down the street. Answer’s pretty obvious. But not this situation. In this instance, you’ve got to choose between two good things—this major or that one, this job or that one, this city or that one. And so you come to God, looking for wisdom.

Wisdom is a difficult concept for me to grasp. The truth is that when I pray for wisdom, I’m really asking for a burning bush, a message in my Alphabits cereal, or a song on the radio with the perfect lyrics. I don’t want wisdom, per sey, I want answers. But if you’ve sat in that position, wanting answers from God, you know it doesn’t work like that most of the time.

Wisdom is more ambiguous. It requires weighing options. It requires some amount of logic. But most of all, wisdom requires faith. Making a wise decision is a lot different than having certainty. That’s what you get as you read the Book of Proverbs.

You get a foundation for practical, every-day decisions. You don’t necessarily get the answers, but you do get principles that enable you to make decisions on your own. You get the framework inside of which you can operate confidently, and yet with uncertainty. And that brings us back to the key element of wisdom—faith.

Just like George Michael said, “You gotta have faith, a-faith, a-faith, ahhhh…” Chances are when you come to God asking for wisdom, you’re not going to get explicit answers. It makes sense in a way, because all throughout Scripture, God seems to value faith above most aspects in our lives. If He was in the business of giving out absolutely explicit answers, then why would we need to trust? Why would we need to rely on Him? Why would we need to develop that constant communion with Jesus? Instead we could just easily follow the scripted course God laid out for us.

But in the wisdom matrix, we must still trust. We must come to a fork in the road and say, “Based on the facts, I believe this is the right way to go. I believe …” And we choose. That’s what this study in Proverbs can do for you—not necessarily give you explicit answers, but provide the framework in which you can walk. In faith.

Let’s remember that during this season of LifeMatters, that God is working inside us to develop our faith. That’s truly wise.