Wisdom can only come from God - true or false?

It would be interesting to see how others would answer this question. I say yes, absolutely it can only come from God. Human wisdom gets us in trouble so much of the time. It may help us to solve some of our immediate problems, but in the long run we need God's wisdom to live the life that he called us to live. The other question to ask would be, would you choose wealth over wisdom if given the chance? Even the most powerful Kings in the Bible eventually chose wealth and power over wisdom as you will see in my story.

Because life is short, we need wisdom that is greater than this world can offer. We need the words of Almighty God so we can live right. If we listen to him, his wisdom spares us the bitterness of futile human experience and gives us a hope that goes beyond death. When we realize that God will evaluate all that we do, we should learn to live wisely, remembering that he is present each day, and learn to obey his guidelines for living. But in order to have God’s wisdom, we must first get to know and honor him.

Wisdom comes in two ways: It is a God-given gift and also the result of an energetic search. Wisdom's starting point is God and his revealed Word, the source of "knowledge and understanding", as stated in Proverbs 2:6 "For the Lord grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding". In that sense, wisdom is his gift to us. But he gives it only to those who earnestly seek it. But because God's wisdom is hidden from the rebellious and foolish, it takes effort to find it and use it. This pathway to wisdom is strenuous. When we are on the right path, we discover that true wisdom is God's and that he will guide us and reward our sincere persistent search.

The book of Ecclesiastes fascinates me because it is filled with so many lessons for us from King Solomon. In the Old Testament, King Solomon was the son of King David. When King Solomon became King instead of asking God for power and wealth, he asked God for wisdom to rule the Israelites. This pleased God so much that God also added riches and power to his Kingdom during his reign, but this would be short lived.

King Solomon did so much soul searching during this time of his life for the meaning of life. He had so much, more than he could have ever asked for. He had every woman he wanted, he had all the wealth in the land, all the gold and silver anyone could ever need. He also had hundreds of vineyards, crops and animals, tremendous power and prestige – he had it all. He tried everything to make himself happy, lots of women, drinking, building beautiful buildings, planting crops and trying to find life’s true meaning. But what he discovered as most of us eventually do – is that “anything in life is meaningless without God”.

In case you don’t know the outcome of this story, King Solomon was told by God to stay away from Pagan women. The reason was that God believed he would be influenced by their pagan worship rituals. They would lead him to worship paganism instead of the true God. I will never understand this, maybe when I am in God’s presence I will, why Solomon didn’t obey God, after all he had done for him. He started bringing in the Pagan women of other religious belief’s, and pretty soon he was lost. The reason God didn’t destroy or punish him at that very moment, was because God had made a covenant with his father King David. God had promised King David that he would bless all his descendants to the thousand generations. Remember King David was a man after God’s own heart. So God went along and let Solomon do “his thing” but eventually his kingdom was taken away. How very sad that is.

Isn’t that like us today, we know what is right and want to do the right thing, but sometimes the temptations are too great and we give into the temptation. I believe that is what happened to him but he had his kingdom and God’s blessings to loose. Is it worth it? I don’t think so.

Solomon wrote this book after he’d tried everything and achieved much only to find that nothing apart from God made him happy. He wanted his readers to avoid these same senseless pursuits. If we try to find meaning in our accomplishments rather than God, we will never be satisfied and everything we pursue will be meaningless.

God has planted eternity in the human heart. This means we can never be completely satisfied with earthly pleasures and pursuits.

Because we are created in God’s image,

1) we have a spiritual thirst,

2) we have eternal value,

3) nothing but the eternal God can truly satisfy us.

He has built a restless yearning for a perfect world that can only be found in his perfect rule. He has given us a glimpse of the perfection in his creation. But it is only a glimpse we cannot see into the future or comprehend everything. So we must trust him now and do his work on earth – to be able to one day be in his presence and hear those words “well done my faithful servant”.

I truly believe King Solomon’s words are meant for us to not make the same mistakes he did. So read the book of Ecclesiastes and watch God speak to you and listen and gain wisdom knowing and fearing God is the beginning of wisdom.

I also believe in my heart that when we try to live in line with God’s will, and pray for other’s to receive salvation and blessings, God will bless us beyond anything we could ever imagine. The true heart of God is when we give of ourselves and place others ahead of our own interests and needs.

Proverbs is also an excellent book in the Bible where we can find more of God’s wisdom. God thought of everything we could possibly experience and covered it in his amazing word, but it starts with a relationship with him first. My prayer is that you begin a relationship with him today if you have not already done so, and watch him go to work in you!

God Bless.