Priceless

“But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.” (Job 28:12-13 AV)

It is a sad reality that mankind does not understand the value of wisdom.  This is the understanding of Job’s statement.  A statement that is reflected many times in the book of proverbs.  Job then proceeds to compare wisdom with the most valuable materials on earth and finds them wanting.  The last phrase is intended to testify God is the only source of wisdom.  In the light of the advice of his three friends, he intimates they have no wisdom no matter how deep they dig because wisdom only comes from God.  Seeing as they are not asking God for His opinion, their wisdom is not wisdom at all.  The underlined phrase above is our meditation this morning.  There is no way we can fully appreciate the value of wisdom because we fail to apply it more times than we care to think about.  If we really understood the value of it, we would never fail to apply it.

I worked in a plastics factory years ago and they took safety very seriously.  As they should.  Working with hot plastics carries with it the danger of serious burns.  There was also the danger of cuts from cooled plastics or the knives which we worked with.  The rule of the floor was gloves, all the time.  The burn resistant gloves went up to almost the elbow.  The cut resistant gloves were normal sized gloves.  When one is in a hurry, cut resistant gloves were not always worn.  The wisdom assumed time was more valuable then health.  Another rule of thumb was using the e-stop and locking out all power no matter the problem at hand.  Even for a small jam or restringing the twist-tie machine, the entire line had to be stopped and locked out.  I remember one such incident.  It involved our safety coordinator (usually the highest risk takers of all).  He needed to restring the twist-tie wire and didn’t lock out line.  He put his hand in front of a moving line.  He couldn’t get it out of the way fast enough and it caused a great amount of damage.  Wisdom was there but it cost time.  This is our problem.  We underestimate the value of wisdom and therefor, fail to apply it.

If we were to look back and meditate upon all the foolish things we have done, it would dawn on us we didn’t value wisdom at the time.  We valued something else.  Whether it was pleasure or convenience; pride or laziness; willful ignorance or innovation, wisdom cannot be ignored.  If we are honest with ourselves, we can see some of the things we have done and wished we would have done differently.  Why?  Because we see the value of wisdom.  Unfortunately, we see it after the fact.  The consequences of our foolishness coming home to roost and then we finally concede wisdom is a priceless thing.  Being what we are, we go down a road that only reinforces this same pattern.  Wisdom flees because we can only see the value of it after it is applied.  It would be much better if we would simply trust the LORD and His word, apply it to every area of life, and enjoy the absence of unfortunate consequences caused by the lack of appreciation for wisdom.