“How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver!” – Proverbs 16:16
I am impatient and want return on my investment right away. This proverb speaks to my desire for tangible benefits that will pass away instead of the intangible ones that reflect eternal value. The kicker, of course, is that it’s significantly easier to get and keep silver and gold if you have wisdom and insight, and if you have gold but no wisdom, you probably won’t have the gold that long.
Right now, I’m reaping weekly blessings from a book discussion with a friend. We’ve finished one book already and moved onto the second today. Our weekly conversation is always about more than the book chapter, but that part of our accountability has been a nice addition to our talks.
Here’s what’s surprising. I’ve started to read books with this friend before. I’ve known him for over 10 years, value his intelligence and time, and have sought his partnership in working through some difficult reading during past summers. Inevitably, we’d get one or two weeks in and then our conversation would fall off.
This year, I didn’t start with the plan of talking to my friend about a book. I started wanting to have a more regularly scheduled time to talk to my friend. So we talked for about 30 minutes each week this spring semester, and then when summer rolled around, it made sense to fold a book into our weekly talks.
And approaching the book discussion in the context of a larger developed relationship has been eye-opening. Each week, I am better able to understand the material I read because of my friend’s insights, and I’m so thankful for his willingness to listen to me try and articulate what I’m thinking. I don’t think I would have classified my earlier attempts at book discussions with the friend as gold grabs, but it’s telling that the time I’ve taken to listen and talk with my friend has ended up taking us where we always wanted to jump to. At this point, we’ve had the book discussion talk for six weeks running, and it shows no signs of slowing down.
This semester and every semester thereafter, I will try and live out this truth: that wisdom and insight are products of consistent effort and accumulated habits and that gold and silver will come if the wisdom and insight are there but will be fleeting at best if I try and execute shortcuts.
Think of the day to day life experiences each disciple with Jesus that never made it into scripture. John says that Christ’s miraculous works were too numerous to record. How much more were the mundane daily activities of life that made up 80% of Christ’s time with Peter, James, John and the crew? That was the lived background for the miraculous, for the wisdom and insight they learned from Christ.
God, let me live with you, seeking your kingdom first. Let me learn about and delight in you. Let me increase in wisdom. Let me then have the insight to teach others about the joy you provide.