True Wisdom

Proverbs 8:12~"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion." (ESV)
                   ~"I, Wisdom, share a home with shrewdness and have knowledge and discretion." (HCSB)
                   ~"I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions." (KJV)

As I was reading this passage over and over this morning, something wonderful happened. I began to understand this verse in a greater light. Shrewdness and witty inventions are crafty words. They are words that speak of the serpent in the garden of eden. These words have a negative aspect to them, but they also have a very positive aspect to them as well. The positive aspect of them is found in the wisdom of Christ (Colossians 2:3~Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.)

I pray for wisdom and discernment almost every day. One of the things that I learned, (or was freshly reminded of) this morning was that wisdom is not so much about how many facts you know, or how smart you are. Wisdom is the character of Christ in action.

We had an incident in our home last night. My two youngest children are a boy, 22 months, and a girl, 4 months. Our boy is very careful with his baby sister. Yet he is beginning to push the limits as to what he can and can not get away with. He has been told that he is not to hit or kick the baby at all. He understands what this means and is very careful to never disobey our commands (when he knows we are watching). Yesterday I changed the baby's diaper and was heading to the garbage to throw it away. Our son was hovering over the baby, kissing and hugging her. When I walked out of the room, he stood up and began to jump up and down very near her head. I peeked around the corner to watch him and he saw me and said "hi baby," and bent down to give her a kiss. I quickly moved to the other place in the living room to see him from another angle. He no longer thought I was watching, and began to jump near her head again. He then gave her a brief and very light kick in her head. She smiled. It could have been unintentional, so I watched for another 20 seconds. He proceeded to give her another little kick in the head again, this time a little harder. She smiled again, but I knew that he needed to be punished for his disobedience. I ran around the corner and disciplined him accordingly.

Why I was reminded of this story this morning is because I think this is the kind of craftiness and shrewdness that true wisdom has. When I was a teenager, I was very crafty and shrewd. But my intentions were always evil and sinful. As a 38 year old father, who is now a Christian, I am called to be crafty and shrewd as well, but with good and godly intentions. I anticipated that my son was going to disobey a command that he knows and understands. Did he hurt his younger sister, no. Then why discipline? Because this issue is not whether he hurt her or not, it is whether he obeys or not. If I let him disobey in the little things when he is under 2, he will disobey in the bigger things when he is 22.

My craftiness and shrewdness in that situation is what the Bible calls wisdom. It is not necessarily all of the facts that I know, it is the applying of those facts to life which is true wisdom from above. True wisdom is found in the Person of Jesus Christ, and this wisdom is shrewd and crafty in a good way.