Knowledge is learning things. Wisdom is effectively applying what you know. Good judgement, common sense, and discernment all fall in the realm of Wisdom. It is a simple process to learn something. Being wise is more complex and at times elusive.
I want to be wise. God wants me to be wise. I desire to be a person that properly applies His truth in my life. How can I more readily allow God to cultivate wisdom in my life? I think I have a simple perspective that helps me understand God’s process of developing wisdom in me.
Creating wisdom in your life is similar to creating “compost”. Compost will transform a garden. It starts with making a pile of manure, straw, leaves, and any organic waste available. When my kids were younger my source for my compost pile was usually slime and straw that we scraped up from the floor of our chicken coop. What a mess. We would place it in a large pile near the garden. Fruit and vegetable scraps were added from our kitchen, leaves from the yard, and other weeds and grass. With time, water, worms, bacteria, and other processes doing their thing, this pile of waste and garbage would become a nutrient-rich soil conditioner that transformed our clay garden dirt into a plant paradise.
While our compost looked like a pile of trash sitting on the ground a trained eye realized the treasure that it truly was. Gaining wisdom in my life was much the same. It has often come from the knowledge and truth I have learned from the hardships of life. Painful experiences, broken relationships, false promises, and all sorts of what I sometimes perceived as the “waste and garbage” of life provided the basis for God to build wisdom into me. With time, life experience, spiritual insights, and biblical truth, God transformed that pile of garbage-like experiences into a “fertilizer for my life” that blesses me and hopefully those around me. The wisdom God desires to instill in me is a treasure beyond value.
It takes all the components to transform organic garbage into compost. It takes all the experiences of life, viewed through the eyes of heaven, to bring about wisdom. Time is of critical importance. It takes time to transform manure into fertilizer. It takes time for God to transform hardships into wisdom. It is His desire to grow wisdom in me and in you. I encourage you to begin to see the hardships of life as the foundation of future wisdom that God will give you.
Some scriptures to consider: Proverbs 4:5-9, Proverbs 8
