Tag: Wisdom

Leverage the Available Tools

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Essay By Dan

Pepper read the previous essay on Wisdom and asked – how do we use wisdom while we play in the sandbox? You may recall this sandbox metaphor from my previous essay on Wisdom. How does it work in practice? The idea of God as an infinitely wise being is the root of all truth. You also may recall an essay I wrote a while back about truth. Absolute truth lives in God’s wisdom. We begin here…

Proverbs 11:14 tell us there’s wisdom in the council of many. It is this wisdom that draws us back to our Men’s Group on Saturday mornings, week after week after week, hoping to hear something that will help guide us through the sea of human drama we live within. There are more things of course that draw us to Saturday morning than just corporate wisdom; But wisdom is certainly one of them. We listen, offer our past experiences, and we learn from each other.

I do not want to simplify things too much, but once you are properly playing in the sandbox, the whole of history ultimately becomes a contest between the wisdom of God and the cunningness of Satan. In Isaiah 14:14 Lucifer dared to say – “I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most-High.”  Of course, the outcome of that contest is not in doubt. The lies and pseudo-wisdom spewed out by Satan will fail in the light of perfect wisdom of God. God has promised us He will control the effort of Satan to distract men from walking with God (see Isaiah 14:26-27).

Proverbs 3:18-26 tells us “As a tree produces fruit, wisdom gives life to those who use it, and everyone who uses it will be happy. The Lord made the earth, using his wisdom. He set the sky in place, using his understanding. With his knowledge, he made springs flow into rivers and the clouds drop rain on the earth. My child, hold on to wisdom and good sense. Don’t let them out of your sight. They will give your life beauty like a necklace around your neck. Then you will go your way in safety, and you will not get hurt. When you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, you will sleep in peace. You will not be afraid of sudden trouble; you will not fear the ruin that comes to the wicked, because the Lord will keep you safe. He will keep you from being trapped.”  This is the sandbox…

God’s wisdom sees everything in focus, each element in its proper relationship to the whole, and all the required tasking necessary to achieve the endgame. Wisdom moves us towards God’s goal with flawless precision. What do we do? Engage in life with the still small voice of the one true living God.

God does everything with perfect wisdom – first for his own glory and then for the highest good of the greatest number of us for the longest period. There is nothing but pureness, goodness, and wisdom in his acts. Not only could his wise actions not be any better than they are; a better way to do them is not possible to imagine. Oh Lord how manifold are your works and your wisdom that has made them all. The earth is full of your riches (implied in Psalms 104:24-25}.

Most of us go through life praying a little bit for relief from problems, planning a little bit on how we are going to live our life, jockeying for position in our families and our jobs, never quite certain of anything, and secretly afraid that we are going to miss the path. In my humble view, the wisdom he makes available to us brings a calm to the storm as we careen through life like a steel ball in a pinball machine.

If we believe that God constantly injects circumstances that work for our good, He helps us to move towards a constant state of service, praise, and worship. Furthermore, those circumstances help us to find God’s peace and wisdom in the middle of a hurricane. Focus on the tools mentioned in Proverbs 3:18-26. Leverage the tools available in the sandbox.

I choose Jesus.

A Drop of Water

Published on by DanLeave a comment

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.