Wisdom - 29 September 2023

In this, the last Verse-a-day for this month, I would like to go back to the beginning where we said that wisdom is the sum total of a life well lived. Over these past four weeks, we looked at a group of different proverbs. Every one of these proverbs has to do with our everyday lives and gave us some practical guidelines about a life well lived. The binding factor is wisdom. The book of Proverbs uses the feminine form of the word when it refers to wisdom, thus depicting wisdom as a “person”.

The proverb of the day portrays wisdom, as a woman, that is present wherever you will find a gathering of people. She is out in the streets and in the marketplaces. She is there where people are going about their daily lives, buying and selling, talking with each other and going to work, sports events or to the theatre. Not only is she present in our daily lives, she is also at the city gates. The city gates were the gathering place of the elders of a city, where they talked about serious matters, held court and administered justice.

In the streets, the marketplace and at the city gates, she is calling “loudly”. Wisdom does not want to hide; to the contrary, she wants to be heard above the hustle and bustle of people going about their daily lives. For a life well lived, we as children of God should all be spreading wisdom as loudly as possible, to make sure we are heard above the noise of the world around us.

I would like to use something from the very first Verse-a-day of this month. Wisdom can be described as the willingness to open yourself to God and other people. It is a willingness to learn about God and life. When this is true in my life, I can call out loudly wherever I met people, as long as I remember the most important of all: “It is the LORD who gives wisdom; from him come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6).

Prayer: At the end of another month, we pray Lord that you will teach us every day how to be wise and show us where we should make this wisdom known. Amen