Wisdom

 Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 v “I am calling to all of you, and my appeal is to all people.”

In the opening chapters of Proverbs eight Wisdom is calling out. An abstract concept explained by the writer as the personification of a woman. In the second part of the passage Wisdom explains that she was there first, before the world began. “I was beside Him as a master craftsman”, “found joy in His inhabited world, and delighted in the human race.”

My husband is a carpenter by trade and often refers to it being the most noble of professions saying “ after all Jesus was a carpenter” Throughout our marriage we have brought and renovated and sold houses to build equity as the companies my husband worked for did not for many years have a pension plan of any sort so to save for the future we used his skills after his work day was done to save for the future. This was a wise decision, something that dictated how we lived. However, for a while we were busy with bringing up a family and lived in the same house for 20 years. We had to find another way of building equity and started saving RRSP’s on the advice of someone I worked with. Again, a wise decision. Then the reality of retirement arrived, and our financial worries were taken away as we were able to have an income that we could live on without working!! Our lives have been forever changed.  

I can see in my life that wisdom has followed me in this story for my entire married life. That the decisions made have led me to this place, and without those decisions at different points in our lifetime we would not be where we are today. The wonderful poetic lines in this Old Testament passage help to show how good decisions have been with us since the beginning of creation. That a life with God transforms our situation “and my appeal is to all people.” The New Testament changes everything but the wealth of information in the Old Testament provides a strong foundation on which to build a new house.

Prayer: Loving Father thank you for the wisdom that has been with us since the beginning of time and that building a life with a strong foundation leads us to a place of peace  Amen.