Sunday Ponderings ~ Where I Want To Go

After listening to our pastor's sermon this morning, I've been pondering this afternoon on what may well be the most important statement from the book of Proverbs, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding" (9:10).

I think wisdom is something we're all after. It's what Eve went after in the Garden of Eden. Satan convinced her that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was going to make her wise. Now, wisdom is a good thing to have. It helps us make our way through life less haphazardly. So Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. She soon learned, however, that was definitely not a wise thing to do. The price of the fruit was more than she expected to pay.

Eve listened to the wrong voice, and we often do the same. Heeding any voice that contradicts God's Word, as Eve did, can sometimes sound and feel right and good, but it too often takes us where we do not intend to go. Add our own voice to the voices outside of us, and life can become rather confusing. I want wisdom, and I'm pretty sure that you do as well, but we need true, godly wisdom, not the wisdom the world or what Satan offers to us. I've seen the consequences Eve paid, and I don't want to go there. I've learned from some of my own consequences as well.

How do we know what true wisdom is? Where do we begin to gain this kind of wisdom? We first have to look at a foundational truth, and that is the statement in Proverbs, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." If we have no fear of God, no understanding of His holiness and what He requires of us, then we are stuck in the muck and mire of our careless, foolish ways. And life will be one poor decision after another, consequence upon consequence, until we are so totally confused that life itself seems to be a ricochet from one disappointing or even disastrous decision or relationship to another.

That's why the world's wisdom doesn't work for us. There is no fear of God, no understanding of His holiness in it. If we want more wisdom, we must know more about God, for that is where it all begins. Knowing God teaches us the whys and wherefores of daily living, because He created us and knows how to best live this life. Knowing God teaches us about the blessings and consequences of our decisions and patterns of living.

The fear of the Lord, resulting from the knowledge of His holiness, is the beginning of true wisdom. Which takes me where I truly do want to go.

Image ~ Posing With Posies, Wilhelm Menzler, 1846-1926 

public domain, via Tumblr

A Life of Ease

Sharing a portion today from my quiet time reading with J.I. Packer on Knowing God Through the Year.

God’s almighty wisdom is always active and never fails. All his words of creation and providence and grace display it, and until we can see it in them, we just are not seeing them straight. But we cannot recognize God’s wisdom unless we know the end for which he is working.

Here many go wrong. Misunderstanding what the Bible means when it says that God is love (see I John 4:8-10), they think that God intends a trouble-free life for all. Hence they conclude that anything painful and upsetting (illness, accident, injury, job loss, the suffering of a loved one) indicates either that God’s wisdom or his power, or both, have broken down. Or they conclude that God, after all, does not exist.

But this idea of God’s intention is a complete mistake. God’s wisdom is not pledged to keep a fallen world happy. Not even to Christians has he promised a trouble-free life; rather the reverse. He has other ends in view for life in this world than simply to make it easy for everyone.

Painting ~ The Bracelet, Isaac Snowman 1903