Child, Get Wisdom!

How do you measure success – perhaps a plan carried out or a goal met?

How can you know you’re succeeding if you have no plan or goal?

It's hard to imagine my teenage self having a plan or a goal for my life.  But, if I were able to go back in time and tell my teenage self something, I would tell her to make it her goal to "get wisdom!"  This instruction comes straight from Proverbs 4: “Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them.” (NIV)

I was never a reader as a child.  I have always been a very slow reader, always the last one in the class to finish.  This made me despise reading.  In my college years I discovered that reading was not so bad if the books were ones I enjoyed.  So I read a few dozen of Janette Oke’s Christian romance books and felt pretty good about myself.  But after I finished her books, I never really made the effort to find another author that I liked.  Consequently, I can count on one hand how many books I read, outside of class, in the next ten to fifteen years.  Sad, I know.

As a woman getting very near to age 40, I have now realized that there is a wealth of wisdom recorded in books.  To not tap into that wisdom is very unwise!  In the last few years I have noticed that nearly all of the women, and men, that I know and consider to be “successful” in life have been readers.  In fact, they continue to be readers no matter how busy their life gets.  At any given time I could ask them, “What are you reading currently,” and they would have an answer.  This is my new aspiration, my goal to be attained… to always be reading something.

Lest you should leave any comments about how just reading “something” isn’t enough, I want to point out that I am referring to reading outside of Scripture.  Without a doubt, Scripture should be read in tandem with anything else.  In addition, it’s important to evaluate the kind of books that you consume.  Proverbs 15:14 addresses this issue. 

“A wise person is hungry for truth, while the fool feeds on trash.” (NLT)

That’s what I would tell my teenage self.  How about you?

 Proverbs 8:11  “For wisdom is far more valuable than rubies. Nothing you desire can be compared with it.”

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