What is Wisdom?

While the Western mind, descended from the Greek tradition, seeks to argue ["I don't agree; let me tell you what I think"], the Oriental mind seeks wisdom---to comprehend, to understand what it does not yet grasp.

Humility opens the door to wisdom and understanding---and then knowledge.

As a child, I fell in love with wisdom and asked God from that time on for wisdom.  He answered by showing me my own heart as a scroll that I could not read---it appeared to be blank, but my feeling was only that I could not see what it contained.  Then I understood that if I allowed Him to show me what was there, it would lead me to heaven.  He then showed me the first word, "Purity," a word I did not really understand at the time, a word I almost felt had no relationship or emotional resonance to me.  At the time, that word was almost like a foreign word to me, since I had no experience (of purity) to which I could attach meaning or significance.

I now believe the word was written on my heart by Jesus Himself as the gift He was to give me over the years.  Having seen the word written on my heart caused me to begin seeking its meaning.  For more than 30 years, that was the only word I was given, but gradually during that time, I grew to understand what it meant, with the Holy Spirit as my teacher and guide.  He even, miraculously, it seems, put into my hands Kirkegaard's Purity of Heart.  To this day, I do not know how I acquired this book, or when, but Kirkegaard turned on a light in my mind and put words to what I had experienced years before:  Purity of heart is to desire one thing.  If one desires one thing plus other things, it is not purity of heart, but something else.

How wonderfully K. described my growth into my "lifetime scripture:" One thing I ask of the Lord, and this I seek--to dwell in the house of the Lord all my days and to gaze upon the beauty of His temple (Ps. 27).  From the moment I first read that verse, I knew it was my "lifetime" Scripture---it was the "one thing" I desired above all else.  But it took 30 years for the rest of K's description to be true of me---or before I began to approach true purity of heart.  And even now....

But some years ago, the Lord in His love and mercy for me wrote on my heart scroll a second word: humility.  Now, if "purity' has taken 30 years, how long will 'humility' take?  Again, the word seemed almost foreign to me, as I knew myself to be more proud than humble.  But now I understand that He writes on our hearts what He will teach us.  He teaches humility and purity, and His teaching is effective.  His word in us accomplishes what it says -- see Is. 55:10-11.  If He writes it, it is finished, done, completed, perfected.  "What I have written, I have written," said Caesar of Christ---or Christ of us.  What He writes on our hearts, no one can counter-write or erase:  "It is finished!"  [Even though it may take 30 years or more for the work to be completed in us.]

Finally, within the last two years, a third word was given to me:  truth.  I began a couple of years ago to fall in love with truth, embracing it as a tree of life, clinging to it as a sure foundation, understanding for the first time in my life the meaning and value of truth.  He Himself is Truth, and from Him comes all truth and all understanding of truth.  He is the light of the world, and in His light, we see light. 

And finally, I see:  I asked for wisdom as a child, but wisdom is the sum of these gifts:  purity of heart, humility to receive, and the truth that sets us free.  That is wisdom, and it takes a lifetime to grow into wisdom, even though in the Book of Job, Elihu says, "it is the breath of the Almighty in a man that gives him wisdom [and the young as well as the old have the breath of God if they are receptive and pure enough to receive it---my addition based on Elihu's speech]. 

I say, "Be careful what you ask God for; He takes all requests seriously."