Day 7 - Issue 25
Job 12:12-13 NLT
'Wisdom belongs to the aged, and understanding to the old. But true wisdom and power are found in God; counsel and understanding are his.'
The list of questions I carry has lengthened over time. I’m now content to live with questions, and have little interest in, even expectation of, answers in as far as answers offer a one-time solution. The Christian life is a paradox, as so many of Jesus’ teachings demonstrate. It has long been assumed that wisdom accompanies ageing, yet that is far from the truth. Here Job challenges the presupposition.
I have been quite shocked that unhelpful behaviours expressed throughout my youth have journeyed with me well into the ageing process. Knowing God and getting older does not guarantee wisdom. As I chat with many of those mature in years, it is often a loss of understanding that emerges, rather than a clear picture: confusion, disappointment and anger at the consequences of ageing, from creaking bones to challenging health conditions. Surely this is a season when we have discovered God is not in the business of maintaining health and beauty for its own sake. God is in the development business, and I am God’s project.
I remember when we first established the Oratory, then in Portsmouth, we completely reconfigured the house. For a long period the project required us to strip away unwanted decoration, knock down walls and remove items that had served their purpose. For a while, any visitor would have struggled to see the hospitable oasis of welcome we’d envisioned. Just the dust and mess on any building site.
Wisdom comes as we reflect upon the journey to date, and review our confidence in God’s promises now that life is more difficult to navigate. It’s a time of reimagination in the Holy Spirit, of new birth into the person who truly reflects complete confidence in God at a stage when most of society treats us as out of place and possibly expendable. Instead of causing reaction, we smile in the full knowledge that we only continue to hold onto life by God’s grace and increasingly long to be released from this mortal garment and step into the eternity we have sought all our life.
QUESTION: What do you think wisdom is?
PRAYER: Lord, make me wise by teaching me your ways.
