A wisdom that harms

I sat on my couch with a moment, mid-afternoon, to study the Word —coffee was even in hand.

Any mother of littles or business owner who works from home might know how hard it is to carve out such a time as this.

But a passage from my reading much earlier in the day had stuck with me and I was longing to dig in deeper.

James 3 is where the passage can be found —a passage on wisdom and it’s uses…or perhaps of it’s harm.

The line had been going through my mind for several days, how knowledge has a tendency to puff us up. (1 Cor. 8:1)

So what did my studies find?

Perhaps a description of our world, or more than anything —an insight into my own soul.

You see, our world is silently (or perhaps screamingly) telling us that if we know something we ought to teach it, if we’ve learned something we must devise a plan of sharing it. If we have become an expert in any topic or skill we must find identity within it.

But James points to another way, he says here that if we have valuable skills or abilities than we are prone to self promotion and often will utilize them in a way that can only be described as harsh passion. (Bitter jealousy translates well to this.)

We see this often, wisdom that is beautiful applied in ways that are less than what they ought to be.

I’m stirred by this. My own desire to be puffed a bit more, to be seen as a cultivated individual, to believe the lie that only when I offer something that others are in want of then and only then will I be of some value.

But we are instructed another way —the narrow way, perhaps?

To instead live quietly with that knowledge and put it to good use by applying it to your manner of life, your daily walk.

We were never told to shout our abilities or even our useful insights. I wonder at the many platforms we build whether it be online or amidst a group of friends.

Is it not God who raises men up and lowers them to the dust just as He sees fit?

But what is the way of useful wisdom? Read just a bit further in the third chapter and you’ll come upon verse seventeen. It describes a wisdom that is peaceable, open to reason, full of mercy, gentle, impartial, sincere.

This is when we all might check ourselves.

I am checking myself this week.

Am I content to take the skills and insights that I have been given and employ them in hidden ways, perhaps never to be recognized?

Am I marked as a peaceable person —someone open to reason, full of mercy, impartial (perhaps not fighting only for my one way), gentle and sincere?

Or am I busy employing my wisdom to build my earthly stage, lifting myself up above those around me whether in conversation, thoughts within my mind of being above another, or given to the daily pursuit of becoming something that the world would applaud.

May we all live humbly, mind our own affairs well and walk with the wisdom that is from above.