Wisdom

A friend shared a blog post on Facebook the other day and the title of the blog struck me.  Wisdom Comes Suddenly.   I have not been able to get that phrase out of my mind.  That and the sentence where she says, "you will not find wisdom until the 1000th mopping - so go to it Grasshopper."

I have mulled this over in my mind for the past week and I agree so much with this statement.  Wisdom Comes Suddenly.  I am not talking about Stay at Home versus Working Moms.  Like this blog post author - I will not participate in a battle where everyone loses.  What is wisdom?  Proverbs says so much about wisdom.  In chapter 17 it says, "The discerning sets his face towards wisdom, but the eyes of the fool are on the ends of the earth."  Psalm 111 tells us that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

Knowledge is easily attainable, especially in our culture.  Google (or Giggle as my four year old calls it) makes information pour into our homes at the touch of a button.  I have read that we have more access per hour to news and other "real time" information than people just 150 years ago ever attained in their lifetimes.  It is staggering, overwhelming, and really just too much.  But, does it make us truly wise?

I am a reader.  I read 3-4 novel sized books per week - some fiction, some on adoption, becoming a doula, alternative medicine - countless articles and blog posts, home school our children with a literature based curriculum, and spend 10-15 hours a week researching things that interest me.  I pretty much have a photographic memory, so my little brain is packed with information that I can't forget - believe me, sometimes I try.  I am not really all that smart - Math eludes me and it has taken teaching Biology three times for it to finally begin to click.  We will not even bring up the word Chemistry.  Does all of this make me wise?

The answer is absolutely NO.

Wisdom comes from only one Person - and only one Book.

And in my experience, it takes you by surprise.  I remember clearly one of my "wisdom" moments.  I would love to share it with you.  It happened at 2:30 am on the bathroom floor.  Maybe this is why the "go to it Grasshopper" statement resonated with me so clearly.  It was last March - 2013 and our entire family had the stomach virus.  Never have we all had it at the same time and never have I felt so miserable.  I had just changed the sheets on the couch where I was sleeping with my 2 year old because I had already changed the bed sheets three times that night and just couldn't think of doing it again.  So, I made a thick pallet on the leather sofa and put him there.  I had not been to sleep yet - between changing the bed sheets, taking fluids to the other 6 members of the family, bathing the baby over and over, and of course taking time to puke myself every half hour or so.  It was the perfect storm for a "Mom Pity Party."  As I sat down softly beside my sleeping toddler, warm with fever, and started to gently stretch out behind him, I glanced over at my also feverish 12 year old sleeping in the recliner.  Suddenly, he jumped up - the type of movement that only comes when you are startled from a deep sleep by the need to puke your guts up - and flew to the bathroom.  He made it to the doorway.

Yeah.

Did I mention that this was a violent, uncontrollable stomach virus?  The type that projects the contents of your stomach up and out with bizarre force?

Yeah.

"you will not find wisdom until the 1000th mopping...."  Sometimes all 1,000 happen in.the.same.day.

It was wicked nasty.  It was everywhere.  It stunk.  It made me puke - literally.  And as I sank to my knees again, scrub brush in hand - I cried.  Not tears of frustration, not tears of pity.  I cried tears of thanks.  Wisdom washed over me in that little hall bathroom as I sat there covered in virulent body fluids.  Yes, it was a mess, but is was my mess.  My responsibility.  My little corner of the world where I could minister.  And it mattered.

There is nothing good in me.  Nothing patient, nothing kind, and nothing that desires to scrub a puke infested house 1,000 times.  That, my friends, does not come from anywhere except God Himself.

I wish I could say that I function every moment in the wisdom that I have attained.  I don't.  I mess up - over and over.  But, sometimes I get another glimpse.  And the closer I get to Him, the more glimpses I get.  Spiritually, there is no other high that compares.  Physically, it is usually messy, smelly, and just plain undesirable.  Kind of like my hall bathroom during the puke fest.

But folks, God does not exist for our comfort.  We exist for His glory.  At the end of every day I want to be snuggled closer to Jesus than I was yesterday - and I have a lot of stinky flesh for Him to cut away.  It hurts sometimes.  But more than anything I desire for Him to use me.  He doesn't need me, He can use anyone - I want Him to use me for my little corner.

"My son, eat honey, for it is good,
And the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.
Know that wisdom is such to your soul;
If you find it, there will be a future,
And your hope will not be cut off."  Proverbs 24:13-14