There’s a big difference between “our days are numbered” and “numbering our days.” Acknowledging that our days are numbered is just assenting to the fact that we won’t be around forever. Numbering our days is the biblical wisdom that seeks to squeeze God-fearing insight out of all the days we occupy this life as we see them in light of God’s eternal purposes for us in this world.
We have all kinds of ways to measure ourselves. We have scales to measure our weight. We have thermometers to measure our temperature. We have blood tests to measure all kinds of things. We have charts to measure our body fat index—why would any of us want to do that?! Beyond our physical state, we can measure our financial condition, retirement planning, insurance needs, and how many steps we take each day.
We are a culture obsessed with assessment. In addition to physical assessments, these days, there are all kinds of tests to measure our personality, emotional state, intellect, productivity, and relational capacities.
Do you know what we’ve never been able to find a tool to measure? Our wisdom. How do you know if you’re wise or not? Are you as wise as you need to be? In a time when we seem to admire people who speak their minds and do things their own way, are we admiring wisdom? How do we measure that?
I sat on a jury one time in a very serious criminal case. Over the five-day trial, all the jurors spent a lot of time together. One guy was really clever and had snappy things to say about everything. His humor made the week a lot easier. When we reached the end of the trial and needed to choose a foreperson, the jury members voted for him because he had been the most popular member. He was terrible—all he knew how to do was be funny. In fact, the jury had overlooked another person with experience as a jurist in favor of someone they all liked.
Fortunately, the joking juror had the humility to recognize he wasn’t up to the task, and we elected the one member who had done this before. It was sobering. As a jury, we didn’t rightly measure wisdom, and it could have been very costly for a just outcome to the trial.
The Bible doesn’t allow us to make that mistake. It commends wisdom at every turn. But it does more than that. The Bible commands us to get wisdom.
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight (Prov. 4:7).
In the biblical view, we all begin simple—we lack wisdom. But over time, we must seek to accumulate wisdom in life. Those who do are called wise. Those who don’t are called fools.
How do we get wisdom? The Scriptures offer two ways.
We Receive Wisdom as a Gift
We read in James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask of God, who gives generously, who gives generously without finding fault.”
This way of getting wisdom isn’t my primary focus here.