Feb 13th, 2021: In Search of Knowledge and Wisdom

We look for knowledge with the hope that we can use it to advance ourselves and our causes. Our understanding of our environment helps us to plan and to be creative in planning. In some ways, knowledge gives us a sense of being in control.

There are many different forms of knowledge. Our theoretical one gives us the needed understanding of how things work. Our emotional one allows us to journey with one another through the many challenges of life. Our spiritual knowledge gives us a deeper earning for God and God's presence in the world. 

The question some people have asked me is how to develop a quest for spiritual knowledge. Some might even go further by stating spiritual intelligence as our need for knowing God, others, and ourselves. Here are some of my thoughts:

Being aware of who we are is the first step. The more we become aware of who we are and what we are dealing with in life, the more we learned to have a fear for God. Being aware of ourselves is a critical step in acquiring wisdom. We discover true humility by doing so. 

Discernment is the next step. It is the outcome of being a student of Scripture for Christians. It is more than just having the right theology. It is about knowing what it means to be right with God while facing our human fallenness. We don't read Scripture as a theological thesis. We appreciate it more as God's love letter for us.

Our knowledge of the world cannot exist independently from our relationship with God. When we are willing to commit to that relationship, we begin to see the world and all of its problems quite differently. We experience grace and mercy as we engage in the calamity of human life. We no longer give ourselves the freedom to be indifferent toward the suffering of others. Maybe the search for wisdom is what we really need.

Ecclesiastes 7: 12

"For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it."