The Path of Wisdom

Proverbs 2:1-15

¹My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,

²making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;

³yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,

⁴if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,

⁵then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

⁶For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

⁷he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,

⁸guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.

⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;

¹⁰for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

¹¹discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you,

¹²delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech,

¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness,

¹⁴who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil,

¹⁵men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.

One person I have quoted with frequency in these posts is my dad. He seemed to know every cliché ever spoken and used them to teach me about the vagaries of life. I’m often shocked at how those sayings crop up in my everyday thought processes. Our discussion used to circumnavigate the globe sometimes, as there was nothing off-limits for us to share. And I think that he sometimes (maybe often) disagreed with me just to keep a spark in the conversation. When I entered adolescence, I became more animated and fervent in my beliefs and the ability to express them. One day, he just smiled and said, “you’ll be amazed at how much I learn between the time you are 12 and 20.” He attributed that quote to Will Rogers (1879-1935 – American ‘Cowboy Humorist’, and actor) but I couldn’t find confirmation of that fact. As it turned out, my dad was correct, and it wasn’t until I was well into my 20’s that I realized he was indeed very clever and carried wisdom and common sense around like he invented them. The words we read in Proverbs 2 are similar to those clichés and phrases dad used on me so often.

These 15 verses expound on the benefits of pursuing the wisdom and knowledge of God, for there can be no greater pursuit in our lives. As I read through these verses the first time, (and they begged to be read several times in rapid succession just because of their great meatiness!) I thought that they might be an exaggeration of what comes from a life lived in the ways of God. But repeated reading cleared up that misunderstanding. These words don’t promise an easy, carefree life just because you follow the ways of God. No, the pursuit of God doesn’t bring ease, it brings knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. These are followed by even more noble traits, like righteousness, justice, discretion, and equity – summed up by the words every good path. And the goal of this good path is to stay out of the way of evil men. What a marvelous goal.

It would be my dream to direct every young person I know to these words and say, “See! This is important! Do this!” But I would be wasting my time. I think maybe these truths need to be learned by experience. But that doesn’t mean we don’t try. Perhaps as parents and grandparents we can lead our children to these words through direct exposure and a life lived well, based on these words.