Wisdom's Price

King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 1:16-18 that the more you understand life, the more confrontational it gets. The more that you know, the more imperfection you'll see around you. The more you observe, the more evil becomes evident to you.

So when you set out to comprehend the meaning of life, you must be ready to feel more, think more, question more, hurt more ... and of course do more. Are you ready to pay the price for wisdom then?

There are some people in this world who seem to be more contemplative than others. They're typically not the class clowns or the life of the party. Rather they are the ones who are reading, listening, watching and thinking. They ponder a lot. At the risk of being considered arrogant, they secretly believe that they see and comprehend more than most people. And they're usually right about that!

There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, it is rather a reflection of the reality of God's creation and His work in our individual lives. Some people are smarter than others ... meaning that they are better thinkers. Some people are wiser than others ... meaning that they understand more. (And the two are not the same.)

But God tends to take the most humble and broken and give them the most wisdom. So it is that wisdom is found in the most unlikely of places. Yet wisdom has a nature and character which can be pretty predictable. Simply put, those with wisdom are more impacted by their knowledge than their ignorance. For the rest of us, ignorance can be a pretty powerful force in our lives.

So do compassion, empathy and understanding run deep in your life? If they do, you can take comfort in knowing that God is giving you wisdom. Does sorrow seem to be a common visitor at your table? If so, you can rest assured that God is blessing you with understanding ... and probably equipping you for His service.

Simply knowing stuff can be equated with acquiring data. This a computer could do. But if knowledge is to go deeper and become wisdom, a transforming process is required. There is no doubt that wisdom is valuable. But most of us would do well to be more considerate of its price.

Do you know how expensive wisdom can be?