Lately, there seems to be a theme to what the Lord is surrounding me with—the topic of wisdom. From Lysa Terkherst’s The Best Yes, Vacation Bible School’s theme of wisdom, Jeff is reading Proverbs to our girls each night at bedtime, and, last but not least, a book, Pursuing the Intentional Life by Jean Fleming. The unifying verse of the book is “Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

When I was younger, I foolishly imagined that wisdom was something that I had time to get somewhere in the future…famous last words. I am 41 years old and have for several years seen grey appearing on my head and now am seeing much more. If I live to be 82, I am now middle age, but do I have the wisdom of my years? I wish that I had more than I do, but the past is in the past so there is no time like the present to, by God’s grace, move forward and become wise like Solomon (minus the numerous marriages). A couple of things that I’ve learned are that one doesn’t learn wisdom in a vacuum. I can read ABOUT wisdom, but the application generally happens in day to day life circumstances as one opens himself to the influence of the Holy Spirit. Another thing is that I think I’m beginning to “listen to my elders” more. We live in a culture that worships youth, but as Christians, the Scriptures tell us to respect and honor our elders. They have lived a lot more life than we have and we should value their life experiences and their thoughts.

Here are a couple of thoughts Jean Fleming shared in her book Pursuing the Intentional Life that were greatly encouraging to me. One of the scriptures she used in the book is Paul’s verse from Philippians 1:20 that says “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed but that I will continue to be bold for Christ”…. Paul wrote this as he was in prison. Living life with eager expectation and hope chases away anxieties because we can rest assured that we are looking FORWARD to the fulfillment of God’s glory in a new heaven and a new earth. Our Father only has wonderful things planned for our ultimate future that our minds cannot fathom. Another was that she wrote of the necessity of both discipline and creativity in life. At certain points in one’s life things can begin to become monotonous—laundry, carpooling, cooking, cleaning, working 8-5, and her point is that, for all people, we must perform these tasks. If we don’t grocery shop, there is no food. If we don’t do laundry, there aren’t clean clothes. But as Christians, we MUST have a core mission and value. If we aren’t praying or meditating upon scripture, what type of “scaffolding” are we building in our lives? Jean asks as we look back over our lives, “What will be the scaffolding that emerges?” Her point is that our spiritual disciplines, or lack thereof, will ultimately be our primary scaffold. “Spiritual disciplines are life habits, which ground and deepen me in the faith and help me resist random currents. Creativity is an essential part of spiritual discipline and the spiritual disciplines. It is a tribute to human creativity that we can always find a way to do what we really want to do, to do what we really think is important. This is about discerning the path that takes me where I want to go and then tramping that path again and again.”

Are the things we proclaim we value in life TRULY what we value? If not, by God’s grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit, our actions can grow to be in accordance with our stated beliefs.