How Can We as God's People Find Wisdom?

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We know and have learned that God made man in His image, as Genesis 1:26-27 teaches us. This teaches us that, among other things, man is a morally responsible being, able to make choices, able to respond to God. It also teaches us that we were in the beginning good, truthful, holy and upright beings.

Yet these were all corrupted and defaced in the Fall and due sin. What God is now doing through redemption is repairing and restoring His ruined image in His creation. See 2 Cor. 3:18 and Col. 3:10. Recreating us in that sense, as 2 Cor. 5:17 speaks of. 

One of the ways God is recreating us is through the divine offer of wisdom, namely His wisdom. We see this clearly through Proverbs, the divine gift and need for wisdom on our part.

Read the following Proverbs: 4:7, 13; 8:34-36; 9:4 for just a sample. The point here is that God is ready to offer wisdom to all who desire it and will pursue it. We see the need for and commanded pursuit of wisdom as well in the New Testament, in passages such as Eph. 5:15-17 and Col. 4:5. Col. 1:9 tells us that prayer is one way in which we ask for and God supplies wisdom. James 1:2-5 also speaks of anyone who lacks wisdom, telling them to ASK God to provide this, specifically here in the context of trials and seemingly trying to understand what is going on and what God is up to and teaching us in these, that we may have joy in these trials.

How can we as God's people find wisdom? That is the point for today, something to think on for today.

  1. We must first learn to fear and reverence God. See Ps. 111:10; Pr. 1:7 and 9:10 and 15:33. We must first be humble and teachable, standing in awe of God, acknowledging our littleness, turning away from our own ways and thoughts, willing to have our minds filled and acknowledging that they need to be filled from outside of us.
  2. We must feast on God's Word. See Ps. 119:98-99. We must be a people who meditate on God and His Word if we are to become wise. Col. 3:16 says to "let the Word of God richly dwell within us. Read 2 Tim. 3:15-17 and see all that God's Word offers us this morning and every morning.

Wisdom is doing the right thing at the right time. This is what wisdom offers. This is what we all need if we are honest. Seeing things as they truly are, and responding rightly.

And yet, at the same time, understanding and acknowledging that there will always be gaps in our wisdom here in this fallen world, that we will never "figure everything out". Much of what happens to us here will seem to lack any real purpose or meaning or rhyme or reason, no matter how wise we are. 

Read Deut. 29:29. Read Is. 55:8-9.

All of us, maybe even right now, have, will or are dealing with something very painful, where it will feel as if God has slighted us, not held up His end of things, not been faithful, lost control, you name it. Our pride will be wounded, our emotions turned upside down, we will have no clue what is going on or why it is going on.

These times remind us of the fact that we are to pursue God and wisdom of Him and His ways, and yet remain humble to the fact that there is so much we will never know, and that by design. In our pursuit of wisdom, we must remain humble enough to acknowledge this, that no matter how well we know the Word or the God behind the Word, we will never know everything, much will still be hidden from us, which will require us to walk by faith. Yet even here, the very God we have sought to know and His character we have seen through the Scriptures, this wisdom will guide sufficiently.

The righteous shall live by faith. This is a common theme throughout the Bible. And this faith is fueled by the Word and by God Himself as revealed thru the Word. We will never know it all, but we can live wisely and to the glory of God thru faith, for God has supplied and still supplies us sufficiently that we would be thoroughly equipped for every good work through the Word as we see in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

The question becomes this: Are you truly a student of God's Word? Could it be that you are not humble enough to admit you are in need, therefore you rarely come to the Word or ask God for wisdom? We tend to be a people who pursue fervently and at all costs at times that which we know we lack - money, status, toilet paper.  What about the Word? What about wisdom from above as James 3 teaches?

Let's be a people who pursue wisdom through the Word, and yet humbly realize that we won't know everything, and in these times, let us through the Word and the recorded faithfulness of God be a people who are guided by the truth and the conviction that the inscrutable God who is sovereign and good is all wise in all that He does, even when we cannot discern this.

No matter what we face, we can be sure that God knows what He is doing at all times, even if that is hidden from us at the time. That we can rejoice and trust in Him even when we cannot discern what He is doing.

May this wisdom richly dwell in us.