THE WORD SEEMS ESOTERIC to many people; in fact, it can mean many different things, and I daresay there are many variations in the definitions that people would give. It has been sought out by peoples and written in all kinds of circles for millennia. From the spiritual to the philosophical, to practical worldly wisdom, and now to the current way of administrative knowledgeWisdom has captivated and intrigued many hearts. However, it still remains; Wisdom is something tangible, unique and inspiring. So, let’s take a broad look.

Wisdom is eternal. The Bible tells us that Wisdom existed before God created the world; that wisdom, the embodiment of truth and natural law, was “written” or designed before the concept of a worldly Creation (including the creation of “beings”). I guess it’s like recognizing that things have always been the way they have always been; Like the law of cause and effect: do one thing and you could expect a certain result, that sort of thing. Wisdom from this point of view is the way things invariably work, not always, but most of the time, with a certain level of predictability. From this perspective, it is reliable and is truth; is the way.

Wisdom is the truth. Think about it: could you substitute the word wisdom for truth and vice versa? I have tried this quite a bit in the recent past and found that it works most of the time. Ah, another difficult word to define! Truth. The truth seems to have many varied definitions. For example, we have objective and subjective truth. Objective truth is absolute, irrefutable, and works basically 100 percent of the time; subjective truth, for example, is something that human beings hold from our experience; as our perceptions-It is partly true, but never entirely true since our experience is limited. That is why we have slightly different points of view than those around us. There is not one of us that agrees with one more all the time; even married couples and best friends disagree: we have different “truths.”

Wisdom from a ‘universal law’ position is true because it works that way most of the time, if not all of the time. If given enough time for a particular result to emerge, it does. Viewed in this way, Truth can also be viewed as Wisdom, due to its reliability and longevity. It has worked that way for thousands of years. The truth always intrigues us; Why do some seemingly vague and non-objective truths seem to work over time?

Like the ‘law’ (or Wisdom) of sowing and reaping. We know why good things come back to us; It is usually because the people we interact with want to return a kindness that we have given them, but there are so many factors that cloud the predictability of real Get out. We spiritual beings know it as truth, we believe in it and we practice it. People who are not so spiritual do not necessarily believe in it and therefore do not recognize it as true in the same way.

In this way, truth and wisdom often also require faith. We do not know that something, an action that we do, will turn out well, but we do it in faith; and our faith must be “great enough” to face the eventual disappointment of not seeing the action unfold the way we intended. Our faith is rewarded most of the time, or even sometimes. The person with the greatest faith continues to act (with wisdom and faith) with almost the complete absence of reason to continue; For all intents and purposes, the act is not working. So, in this situation, Wisdom (which is truth) is added to faith, in the form of an act or a series of acts, towards a goal; we could call this Applied wisdom.

Wisdom is applied knowledge. This brings us to the most common definition of Wisdom: worldly wisdom. Truth (knowledge: knowing the truth) added to faith (application: the act of acting) equals wisdom. It’s only wise if it turns out that way: the “proof is in the pudding,” as they say. This seems to be the best basic world understanding of the term Wisdom. It’s like the best question in the world: “What is the wisest thing to do in this situation?” If we asked ourselves more often, there would be much less pain in the world, because we would add faith to our knowledge and act diligently, doing what we want. may do, or we would add knowledge to our faith and be more prudent.

In this way, wisdom is applying the things that we know as truth, the more or less objective or semi-objective truth; it happens this way almost all the time. This requires courage and discipline and a variety of other character qualities.

Wisdom is being applied common sense. The wise life should be the goal of everything sensitive being human is the way of common sense. Common sense is said to be “not very common.” but actually it is common; it seems to be unusual because humans are so riddled with faults; it is our nature to fail occasionally.

Living wisely is applying common sense and discipline through the values ​​of diligence and prudence; it is seeing the world from the point of view of shalom, which is from a state of tranquility, peace, personal integrity and comfort with oneself; it is in a state of balance of time, energy and priorities, all in line and wonderfully optimized; it is having the ability to trust sufficiently in the faith of the result as mentioned above; and finally, it is based on a firm foundation of respect: because we feel in our performance that is right and fair and equitable, honorable and considerate.

Wisdom needs a lot of virtues to support its weight. Try these six above (diligence, prudence, shalom, poise, trust and respect) and see if Wisdom will support you; all these virtues share an interdependence with Wisdom. There is no better reward for life itself than striving for the ‘wise way’. Wisdom is the best thing to invest in.

© 2007 Steve Wickham