"She is more precious than jewels; and nothing you desire compares with her"
This striking description of the value of wisdom is meant to cause you to stop and focus on what you gain when you know the wise thing to do in a given situation. It is amazing that even 3,000 years ago people undervalued the importance of wisdom and overvalued the significance of jewels. Whatever material delight you would like to have cannot be fully enjoyed unless you have wisdom along with it. To achieve your desires but to remain selfish, impulsive, and rebellious is to rob those desires of a level of their satisfaction.
The book of Proverbs is about the pursuit of wisdom. Wisdom is, in each situation, digging for that which is the triple-win (where God wins, others win, and you win). Collecting what to do in a number of situations; making the right choice when various options present themselves; knowing how to deal with various types of people; knowing how to live a fully enjoyable life; being on a path that will bring honor, riches, and joy; avoiding the traps of pride, cynicism, sloth, greed, lust, gossip, violence, anger, lying, etc. – all of this and much more are waiting for the persons who commit themselves to a lifelong search for wisdom.
Right now you are being tempted to go after something other than wisdom. Right now you have choices to make about whether you should do one thing or the other. One of your choices is a shortcut: a small hedging of what is right or a purely selfish pursuit. The other choice is clearly the right way of acting. It is harder and often longer and more people benefit from this way. You personally don't gain as much from this way until much later. These are these choices that are between foolishness and wisdom. They are these choices that will define your life.
If you consistently choose the selfish me-first way, then you will reap the short-term gains of that way and the long-term rebukes – difficulties and pain of that way along with the change in your destiny. If you begin to consistently choose to do the wise thing – the thing where God wins, others win, and you win – then your rewards are much deeper, richer, and fuller than you thought they would be.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz