Essay By Dan

It has been my observation that exploring God’s Wisdom tends to be accomplished by those of us who are hanging out in God’s sandbox (life in the Spirit), already yielding to the God we serve. The unbelieving mind struggles to be convinced by any proof on topics that include the wisdom of God, but those of us who play in the sandbox, walk with God, talk to God, listen to God, we need no proof. We know. We are hungry to know more.

Permit me to share some paraphrased thoughts from Blaze Pascal (a 16th century Mathematician and namesake for a programming language) about wisdom: We should expect neither truth nor consolation when men act on their own. God formed man and alone taught each of us what we are. God created man to be innocent; God filled man with light and intelligence; God communicated to him wisdom, glory, and awareness of God’s wonders. Through wisdom, the eye of man saw the majesty of God. But man has not been able to sustain the glory God gave him without falling into pride. Man wanted to make himself his own center and free himself from God’s wisdom; therefore, man withdrew himself from God’s grace; then ignored God’s wisdom and set himself equal to God.

Daniel said – Praise the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises others up. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning (paraphrased from Daniel 2:20-21).

When our feeble scribblings about God declare that God is wise, the meaning is far more powerful than what we could ever possibly place on paper. We work to make a comparatively overused word represent the incomprehensible depth of God’s cohesive analytical processing algorithms and breadth of knowledge. Unfortunately, in my weakness, even in this case I have diminished the one true living God’s absolute greatness and majesty merely by my choice of words. On my best day I will fail. Bummer. Isaiah 40:28 says “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable.”

His wisdom is infinite (see Psalms 147:5). We know the word infinite describes the bandwidth, height, and depth of something. Given this is the maximum term we could use, we cannot very well put an adjective to enhance the meaning of the word. Would it be appropriate to say “more” infinite or “very” infinite? I think not. Infinite is the correct word. God sets the standard on infinite Wisdom. When I first learned Pascal (a programming language) the notion of MAXINT (the maximum integer possible) seemed immense. However, in the context of God’s wisdom, MAXINT seems like a naive vision of the world (see Proverbs 14:18).

I believe wisdom is taught to us by the Spirit of God (see Nehemiah 9:20) so that on our best day we have the capacity to yield to God’s wisdom as we address situations in a meaningful, positive, moral way. But we should never lose sight that God is infinitely wise and our use of God’s wisdom is but a slight shadow of the totality of God’s wisdom. Our understanding of God’s wisdom is like a drop of water that takes its place in the ocean of water (God’s wisdom) covering most of this globe.

Paul says – “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” (Romans 11:33-34). There will be much more on this topic of playtime in sandboxes – a lot more from Job, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Lamentations.

I choose Jesus.