“God gives out Wisdom free,
is plainspoken in Knowledge and Understanding.
He’s a rich mine of Common Sense for those who live well,
a personal bodyguard to the candid and sincere.
He keeps his eye on all who live honestly,
and pays special attention to his loyally committed ones.” –Proverbs 2:6-8 (MSG)
16/366-Wisdom
This is probably one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible. And The Message translation is one of my favorite translations of it.
The entire first paragraph is filled with verbs – with calls to action:
‘take to heart’
‘collect my counsels’
‘guard them’
‘make Insight your priority’
‘search for it’
To sum it up, finding Wisdom, or Insight, is a pursuit. A choice. It is something we have to deliberately seek. It is not something that ‘just happens’ or comes with age or experience. Growing old doesn’t always equal growing up, and making mistakes doesn’t automatically mean making the choice to learn from them.
In the second paragraph the writer gets straight to the point:
“God gives out Wisdom free, is plainspoken in Knowledge and Understanding.”
Which basically means God’s Wisdom is free and accessible for all. It’s not some obscured, mystical secret only for the elite or super-holy. God is plainspoken – ie easy to understand. The Proverbs are filled with simple truths about honouring your parents and living with common sense. We all can understand those truths and they make sense even to the non-religious. But easy to understand doesn’t equal easy to do.
“He’s a rich mine of Common Sense,” the writer continues, but not without adding a clause: “for those who live well.” For those who CHOOSE Wisdom. Who CHOOSE common sense. Who do all the things in the first paragraph and purposefully seek out “what’s true and fair”.
These are the people, he then goes on to say in the last paragraph, who “find all the good trails”, who have Wisdom and Knowledge as close companions, who will “keep you from making wrong turns, or following the bad directions of those who are lost themselves.”
I’m reminding myself that life is not a game of luck, or chance. It’s a choice. The choices we make every day say a lot about who we are and where we’re headed, and I’m reminded to make my choices with care.
- by Crystal Cha -
Forward
