Godly Wisdom

Wisdom is not to be equated with intelligence.  Intelligence is something one is born with, a capacity to accumulate knowledge.  Being knowledgeable is also not the same as wisdom as it is simply the end result of accumulating knowledge.  Intelligence is the result of genetics, knowledge is the result of study, but wisdom is the ability to apply intelligence and knowledge in the challenges of life.  Wisdom is learned not by intelligent pursuit of academic knowledge but of honest and humble reflection of life's challenges and results of personal choices, so often at the expense of making a mistake or taking a wrong turn.

Wisdom comes from making decisions and learning from the results.  And the most teachable decisions are the ones we call mistakes.  Having gone around the block a few times and hitting a pothole or two, allows one to realize that there is a need to slow down at certain points or move to one side or the other - provided one has learned or gained wisdom from the experiences.  Some people don't seem to learn from their mistakes, they just keep on making the same ones over and over.  They would be the contrast to the wise, otherwise know as fools.

Some people are just not very intelligent and therefore do not have the perceptive skills to learn from their mistakes very well.  But, so much of the time, the barrier to gaining wisdom from one's mistakes is a lack of enough humility to admit they made a bad decision or own up to their mistake.  They can't learn from mistakes because they are too busy denying them.  Therefore they are doomed to keep on making them.  People who keep embracing Socialism despite the fact that every experiment with it - Russia, China, Cuba, et al - have failed, keep on thinking it will work this time because they refuse to critically examine it and see how flawed it is.  These social/political types may be very intelligent but wise?  Not so much.

The humility to admit mistakes and miscalculation is critical to gaining wisdom but there is more.  Paul queries,  "Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" (1 Cor 1:20).  The "more," the essential component of true wisdom is the willingness to go to the Ultimate Source of wisdom: God.

As important as the humility to admit mistakes is to acquiring wisdom, all the more so is the humility to admit that you are not the source of true wisdom "For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength" (1 Cor 1:25).  As we humbly admit to our mistakes, we then need to humbly come before God, seeking an answer that can come fully only from above.

So, humbly embrace your mistakes as they are the proving ground for gaining wisdom but do not neglect to humbly bow before God for he is the Ultimate Source of wisdom: "Where then does wisdom come from? Where does understanding dwell? It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing, concealed even from the birds in the sky. Destruction and Death say, 'Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.' God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells" (Job 28:20-23). Jus' Say'n.