Sunday, September 7, 2025 AM

The Pursuit of Wisdom in Proverbs 2

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day that you have made. We thank you for your abundant provision in our lives. We thank you for governing over the smallest matters and the greatest matters.

We thank you that your sovereignty is thorough and it is uncontestable. And we thank you that you always keep your promises. We thank you that your word is true. We thank you that your grace is powerful and life-changing.

We thank you for the gift of your Son, Jesus Christ, that you have given us your only begotten.

Son.

You have given us your Son, and so we know that with him you will freely give us all.

That we need.

Help us to trust you. Help us to seek you with all our hearts. And I pray that you would help us today as we read this word, that it would be to your glory and to our good. We ask for these many mercies in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Proverbs 2, and we will be reading verses 1 through 9. Solomon continues his admonitions to his son. He desires his son to pursue wisdom, to treasure wisdom, to hold to wisdom as he would his own life.

We've taken the time to lay a good foundation for our understanding here. Solomon desires wisdom for his son as one who recognizes the good of it, as one who has called out to God for wisdom in his own life, and he desires this for his son.

God desires wisdom for our children. He desires wisdom for his children. Wisdom proves essential for everything that we think and say and do. This is what Proverbs 2 confirms. Solomon wants his son to, at first, pursue wisdom and then guard wisdom as he would his very own life.

If you are able, I invite you to stand with me as we read God's holy word, Proverbs 2, verses 1 through 9. My son, if you would receive my words and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding.

Yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

For the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk uprightly. He guards the paths of justice and preserves the way of the saints.

Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Idle hands are the devil's workshop. That's an old saying. It's been a long time since any young person had idle hands. Being bored is something of an antiquity now.

And yet, I felt the weight of that truth when I was working at Presbyterian Day School. There's 80-some boys aged anywhere from 4 to 11, found themselves with nothing to do after school. And so much of my and my staff's responsibility involved finding something constructive for them to do, and disaster loomed over the afternoon if we failed to do this.

There was always a type of boy who did not take to homework or playing games during those after-school hours. He would wander aimlessly and take pleasure in disrupting the lives of the other boys, and they would soon band together and pummel the troublemaker.

And so when I would tell him, don't be a pest, this was sage counsel, but he failed to take it to heart. He had no plan, and so he would wander around and bother people. And so what I would do is I would anchor him to me wherever I went, whatever I did, until he could finally give me a detailed plan about what he was going to go do, and I had to approve of the plan.

And then once I did, then he would go, and then he would be much safer, and he would not be attacked anymore because he wouldn't be bothering anyone. The point is, me saying just don't be a pest is sort of like saying don't be a fool, right?

Now don't be foolish, don't be a fool, but you've got to go somewhere. You've got to be something. You have to pursue something. Without the positive direction for the young man, he'd just be a pest all over again.

Seeking Wisdom as Buried Treasure

So Solomon first counsels his son on the pursuit of wisdom. He says, you need to pursue wisdom. You need to put your attention on going after wisdom and seek wisdom because pursuing wisdom will bring you under the protection of wisdom.

And this is what God offers to us, the pursuit of wisdom for our protection. God intends the active pursuit of wisdom to be a kind of protection for us. After all, we were made by wisdom, we are to live through wisdom, and we are to seek after wisdom.

Wisdom is the skillful mastery of the gift of life unto the praise and delight of the giver of life. It is only by wisdom that we can steward our relationships, responsibilities, and resources unto righteousness.

Now when we hear a bird sing, when we see a bird fly, watch some of them flutter in place, some of them soar on slight breezes, some of them dive quickly at their prey. When you see a bird in motion and hear a bird in all of its song and call, you know why God made birds.

And when you see a man or a woman living in wisdom, you know why God made us. Now how do we get wisdom? You may have picked up on the idea that wisdom is something that you glean and gain over time, that wisdom is something you just kind of accrue like the amount of stuff in your.

House.

Over the course of a few decades, you just have more stuff at the end than you did at the beginning, and that's just kind of how wisdom comes into your life. Perhaps you think of wisdom as you get more wrinkles on your face and you get more wisdom.

In your head.

Just over time, you just gain wisdom. But wisdom is not an inherent trait. It is not gradually increased by the gaining of experience. Wisdom is not the same thing as pattern recognition. Wisdom is not the coping stories that are developed over time.

We don't absorb wisdom by hanging around or by passing the time. By the way, I think there's probably no sadder phrase in the English language, passing the.

Time.

The way of wisdom is the way of Christ. Godliness has no more ample definition, no more accurate example than Jesus Christ. He is the image of the invisible God. He is the one in whom God is well-pleased.

He is the faithful Son. A passage this morning says, pursue wisdom. Well, if we're going to pursue wisdom, then we need to put our attention upon Jesus Christ. And remember this, that God generously gives wisdom even as He tells us to seek it.

In verses 1 through 5, this will be our focus, we see the seeking of wisdom, the seeking.

Of wisdom.

Verses 6 through 9 assure us that the wisdom is supplied by God, but first of all, He says for us to seek it. Solomon's son is not to wander around and absorb wisdom like rain from the sky. He is to seek this wisdom as one would seek buried treasure.

And we are assured this is treasure that God Himself has buried and marked with an X on a map and exhorts us to go find it. The seeking is ours by God's grace and the supplying is God's for His glory.

Verses 1 through 5, the seeking of wisdom. Now we've already seen in chapter 1 of Proverbs, the necessity of wisdom. Can't live without it. What would happen without it is disastrous, so we know the necessity of wisdom.

Solomon wants his son to take hold of wisdom and treasure it and do so in a timely manner. There's simply no reason for a simpleton to love his simplicity. In fact, he has no time for that. He must seek wisdom.

In Proverbs 4, verse 7, Solomon says to his son, wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom and in all you're getting, get understanding. Well, how do you get wisdom? How do you go after that?

You're supposed to seek it. You're to secure wisdom until you find that wisdom has indeed secured you. Verse 1, my son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you. Here begins a progression that culminates in verse 5.

If his son will do this and if he will do that, if only he would do this, if only he would do that, then, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. And so, verses 1 through 4, there's this progression unto a culmination.

The first, he addresses his son. Now, we've thought about this relationship of father and son in chapter 1, but it is worth noting here that when Solomon says, my son, it's more than a biological reference point.

It's even more than an affectionate address. He identifies his son as his son because that lays a necessary foundation. It is right and necessary for a father to educate his son. The son, when he is in the household of his father, the son is in this subordinate position.

And so, every time the father speaks, the son is to hear the tone of command and receive that accent of authority, whatever the father says. And so, when the father says to the son, my son, he is to all at once be reminded of the many blessings of being the son of his father, but also that he is to hear and receive and.

Be directed.

Now, seeking wisdom has to begin somewhere, and it begins in humility, the son rejoicing in being the son, accepting that, applying that, a recognition of one's humble position. He says, my son, if you will receive my words.

For the father has many good words to share with the son. He has answered many questions. He has offered many instructions in chapter 1. The father has many rebukes, many affirmations, many corrections, many encouragements to give.

He wants his son to receive all of these words, which is an ongoing kind of action, to keep on bringing them in and then to carry them along and to have them ready in hand at all times, that these words from the father to the son are not the tool that lies dormant for five years in the garage until finally you need it, that these words are the tools hung on the tool belt, the daily tools used.

And there is a humility here that the son is keeping his father's words at hand, caring about someone else's words, keeping them ready for use at all times, rather than one's own words, having the father's words.

Also, he says, treasure my commands within you. Not only that I have them ready at hand and I can recite them, but I have truly internalized them, that the son has internalized his father's code so that he lives it out.

This too is a matter of humility, to displace one's personal rule, my autonomy, I will determine my own way of life. But to displace that with somebody else's rules, to say, I live by the code given to me by this other person, by my father.

It is as a seed that is carefully germinated and then laid into good, loamy soil and covered over at the right depth. It's going to grow deep in root and produce fruit. This too is a matter of humility.

It is good for us to remember that Adam was created as God's son. We pick up on that theme in the first five chapters of Genesis and Luke returns to it in Luke 3. As Adam begot a son in his own image, according to his own likeness, Genesis 5, this is the way that God described Adam.

Adam was created in the image of God, to reflect God, to project the glory and goodness and authority of God as Adam lived his life in subservience to his creator. The image of God is made for the Word of God.

To be made in God's image is to be made with a purpose. And our purpose is to reflect God in such a way that we glorify God. That is only possible when we receive God's words and treasure them within us as they are planted in us and they bear fruit in us.

A wise father desires that his wisdom is passed along to his son and then he wants to see his son live out those good principles so that he continues to bear the family name well. Where do we get that desire from?

That's our creaturely state before the creator. We were made for His Word to so live out His wisdom, to live out His righteousness that we are bringing fame to His name, that our lives are showing how very good God is.

This is how God spoke about Israel as His son whom He created at Sinai. He made Israel by His Word. He said, here's who you're going to be. Here's how you're going to live. And He wanted Israel so filled with His words as to bring Him glory.

Israel was created to be a faithful son who would treasure God's commands and one generation would say to the next, know the Lord, know the Lord, fear the Lord, fear the Lord. His Word was to be handed down from generation to generation or everything would fall apart.

And as the very Word of God made flesh, Jesus Christ is that faithful son who perfectly treasures His Father's words, keeping all His Father's commands. Whatever the Father told Him to do, He did. As the Father gave Him, so the Son spoke.

He is God's wisdom and righteousness for us. And so it is in following Christ who is the Son and the culmination of all the wisdom of God that we are brought into that place of glorifying God and showing the world how good God is.

Jesus at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount says, "...blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.". Blessed are the poor in spirit. We're the poor in spirit, the contrite, the humble, the lowly of heart.

And Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 66 too where it says that the contrite, the humble, the lowly of heart are those who tremble at God's Word. Here's one of the most significant fruits of a humble person is that when it comes to God's Word, they reverence it.

They tremble at God's Word. Humility, you see, makes us receptive and reverent towards God's Word. And as God's Word fills us with life-transforming wisdom, we are changed. The kind of life transformation that leaves us rejoicing in heaven's dominion, the kingdom of heaven, where from definitions to destinations, we are amening the will of heaven.

Seeking wisdom has to begin somewhere, and it begins with a humble identity where we are fearing the Lord, beginning with Him being great and us being less. Proverbs 11 .2 says, when pride comes, then comes shame, but with the humble is wisdom.

If we want to know where wisdom is, look for where the humble are. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. It is a wonderful, freeing confession and repentance for us to turn to the Lord in humility, to cast off chain after chain of pride, all the things that we think we must maintain to impress others and to impress ourselves, to turn to the Lord in humility, to locate ourselves in Him as little children.

Of such are the kingdom of heaven. Look at the little infant that Christ sits down just learning to sit. He plops that little fat baby in the middle of His disciples and says, of such is the kingdom of heaven.

How freeing is that, that we can come to the Lord and say, I am a little child in need of my heavenly Father. The poor in spirit are wonderfully happy, wonderfully happy. They possess the kingdom of heaven.

All the storehouses of Christ's wisdom are opened unto us. Seeking wisdom not only requires a humble identity but also a humble interest. The Father says, if you receive My words, the son is to so receive the Father's words that it's like a book he can't put down.

He just walks around reading it. He reads it while he eats. He reads it while the football game is on. He reads it when others are trying to talk to him. He's got no embarrassment at all. He just has that book out and he's reading it no matter what goes on.

Have you ever walked around with a big black leather Bible in hand out in public? You watch how uncomfortable everybody gets? Open it and read it while walking around. Watch everyone get as nervous as nervous can be.

You say, is that a Bible? Do it. But the son is not embarrassed at all. Our heavenly Father's words are what we are to receive and take with us. And it doesn't give us any brownie points to actually have a physical Bible and to show off.

That's not what I'm saying. But are we receiving and caring about our Father's words with us wherever we go? Proverbs 15 .33 says, The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom. The instruction of wisdom.

I'm going to keep the instruction of wisdom with me. And before honor, in Hebrew the word is kibbutz, which is glory. Before glory is humility. When we apply God's instructions to man's confusions, folks will want to shame you.

But that is the way of glory. And glory is rightly important to those who are made in the image of God. Seeking wisdom also requires a humble internalization. It's not simply having the words of God ready at hand for whatever situation, but that we treasure God's commands within us.

We are to treasure Christ's commands within us. That our own priorities and our own principles are not our treasures, but what are the priorities and principles of Christ? When we think of the self first and think of the self most, it is a kind of fear and arrogance that destroys a person.

As those made in God's image, we are to treasure the Word made flesh, the image of the invisible God, and all that Christ has commanded. We are to humble ourselves before the King. That is the path of glory.

Proverbs 18 .12 says, The heart of a man is haughty before honor. Before glory is humility. So we are to preserve wisdom. What has been given to us? What has been handed directly to us? What will we do with it?

Let's treasure it. Let's keep it. Let's internalize it. What about paying attention? We should also pay attention to wisdom. If we're going to seek wisdom, hold on to what you've got. If you're going to seek wisdom, then pay attention to what wisdom is saying.

Verse 2, so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. So the son humbly receives and he treasures his father's words and commands, but then he's not simply to respond well to the wisdom that has been delivered, but then he's to lay hold of whatever wisdom is being offered.

So there's the stuff he's got, and then there's the stuff being offered. And so he's got to hold on to what he's got, but then grab hold of that which is being offered. There's a difference, isn't there, between what you hold in your hand and what's being offered at hand?

The son who keeps and treasures what wisdom has been given will then continue in the way of wisdom by active listening and applying what he learns. So he says, so that you incline your ear to wisdom. And the word for incline is simply just listen.

You need to listen with your ears. What else do you do with your ears? I mean, you could do other things with your ears, but shouldn't you be listening with your ears? Those of you who have ears to hear, then hear.

The father is saying to the son, listen up, pay attention, do more than let the auditory tones of my voice pass through your mind. I want you to really incline your ear. Paying attention is hard work.

It is not easy to do. Leaning into wisdom, giving wisdom your full attention demands a kind of particularity, a kind of intentionality. And apply your heart to understanding. So the son is to tilt his ear towards wisdom, and he should lean his heart in the same breath.

To lean the ear and to lean the heart towards knowledge, reason, and teaching. You know, there's a way that someone listens to track information, but there's also a way that one stretches out with eager affection to embrace understanding.

Two different things. Listening is essential for learning, but without the actual learning, then the listening is incomplete. We were not made to simply catalog interesting and compelling information from God, but we are to fully embrace it, to appreciate it, and apply it in our lives.

How many wives and mothers here feel that their cooking is appreciated when someone simply looks at it and smells it and acknowledges it? Something's lacking. Why didn't you eat it? What happens when your family, each one of them, cleans the plate and there's nothing left on the plate?

That's when you feel that your cooking was appreciated. God is giving us His wisdom. Are we really taking it in and making full use of it? God was never happy with Israel's ability to merely regurgitate the important sayings, important prayers and psalms at the appointed moments, walking through the routines of a religious life.

Proverbs 21 .3 says, To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Israel had heard the instructions. They had not particularly favored God's wisdom so as to apply their heart to understanding.

They were often content to just offer sacrifices, but they were not pursuing faithfulness. Christ is the faithful servant, and so He should hold our attention. He should have our affection. So He should have our attention.

Seeking wisdom requires listening. Listening is hard work, but it is well worth it. Proverbs 15, verses 31 and 32, The ear that hears the rebukes of life will abide among the wise. It's easy to turn off rebukes.

How dare you?

How dare you tell me something that I disagree with? It is easy to stop any kind of rebuke and not listen to it at all, but the ear that hears the rebukes of life will abide among the wise. He who disdains instruction...

Again, that word of instruction often contains the notion of correction. He who disdains instruction despises his own soul, but he who heeds rebuke gets understanding. So it requires some listening. Wisdom is being offered.

It's being spoken. It's at hand. Will we grab hold of it, or will we avoid it? Particular and intentional should describe our listening to Christ. It does matter who we listen to, and listening to does not mean just simply hearing sounds.

And, of course, we can listen to those who disagree with Christ and learn what they're all about, but listening to Christ, listening to all that the Father has to say by the Spirit of the Son throughout the Scriptures, that should hold our particular and intentional attention.

Seeking wisdom also requires learning. Not just listening, but learning. Proverbs 16 says, Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established. Are we eager? Here's a question. Are we eager for Christ to tell us what life is all about and how to live?

Are we eager for that? Because he's telling us that in his Word. Are we eager for Christ to tell us what life is all about and how to live? Following Christ is not only about increasing in information, the development of doctrine and the thinking of theology.

We are to learn all of that, but in a manner that reorients our hearts, that even reorganizes our lives. It's a kind of learning that is full of integrity, where what we think and what we say and what we do all agree.

It is true wisdom. Wisdom, Jesus says, wisdom is vindicated by all her children.

What did he mean by that?

He means that wisdom has real world application and impact, or it's not wisdom. Proverbs 24 verses 3 through 4 says, Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established. By knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

That image is to stick with us. Wisdom has a real impact in life. Now, the first two verses here are about wisdom that has been given, wisdom that is offered. But what happens if wisdom is not in easy reach?

What happens when we come to the end of the wisdom that we possess? We're trying to make use of the wisdom that we have. We're trying to pay attention to the wisdom that's being offered. But what happens when we come to the shoreline and there's no more wisdom to walk on, no more wisdom to explore?

What then? Well, then we are to plead for wisdom.

Crying Out for Discernment and Understanding

Verse 3,.

Yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding. So the son, as he's growing up, has long been handed this little bite and that small morsel, and he was told, This is for your discernment.

This is for your understanding. But what happens when it's no longer being handed to him? What if he begins to ask for wisdom, even when it's not being offered? Now, that's progress. That's growing up.

There's maturity. And you notice that the maturity is not marked by less reliance upon the Lord, but by more reliance. We mark progress in children's maturity by how they become less and less reliant upon their parents, more independent, more able to function upon their own until they become their own family, marked by marriage.

That's good. That's proper. It's even reflected in the progress being made here in our text. But maturity and godliness? Maturity and godliness is never a matter of growing more and more independent of our Heavenly Father, or less and less reliant upon our Creator.

Far the reverse.

So here's humility. Crying out for discernment. Here's humility. Lifting up your voice for understanding. So Solomon's son is to seek wisdom by asking for it in the very same way that wisdom was crying out and lifting up her voice in chapter 1 of Proverbs.

Same verbs. He is to call out and lift up his voice in the very same way. The shallow waters of the simpleton end at the shore of wisdom in all her ways. Here the son should cry out, lift up his voice, and pray.

Solomon did this publicly. Prayerfully. He pled for discernment and understanding. 2 Chronicles 1, verses 19 and 20. In front of everybody, Solomon says, Now, O Lord God, let your promise to David my father be established.

For you have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude. Now give me wisdom and knowledge that I may go out and come in before this people. For who can judge this great people of yours?

In the same account in Kings, he said, I am a child. He's humbling himself, this great king, this son of David, humbling himself before everybody in God and saying,.

I need wisdom.

I need knowledge. Although the serpent told Eve the opposite, the fact of the matter was, Eve had all the wisdom she needed there in the word of God that was already delivered to her. The fruit seen in light of the serpent's lies seemed exactly like what she needed to become wise.

But wisdom is found in God and God alone. Proverbs 20, verse 24, A man's steps are of the Lord. How then can a man understand his own way? Well, you can't. Do you realize that? You can't understand your own way.

You can't master your own way. You can't figure it out on your own. You can't dig a well into your own soul and get down to the bottom of it and figure yourself out. You can't. You're made in the image of God.

You're built to glorify Him, to know Him and rejoice in Him. Asking God for discernment, asking God for understanding, means looking to what He has provided, not looking for that outside of His provision.

James 1, verses 5 -8 says, If any of you lacks wisdom, and I'll raise my hand, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally, without reproach, it will be given to him. Notice, but let him ask in faith.

What does that mean?

Ask in agreement with what God has said. Ask for wisdom from the source that God has promised. Ask, believing the promises of God. Ask, believing the Word of God,.

With no doubting,.

For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, for he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

If you're going to ask for wisdom from God and look to the resources of the flesh, you're going to be all over the place. All over the place. But we need to know that we have a great high priest. We have a great high priest who stands for us in the heavenly holy of holies.

He intercedes for us. We need to know that by His merits, in His name, we can come boldly to the throne of grace, asking for mercy and grace in our time of need. We need to believe that our Lord has told us to pray with importunity, to knock, to keep knocking.

Don't give up on the knocking. Keep on knocking until we find the answer from our good heavenly Father who gives to us what He knows is for our good. Jesus says, ask, it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find.

Knock, and it will be opened to you for everyone who asks receives. And he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. So how do you get wisdom?

Ask for it.

Ask for it. Yes. Yes, hold on to and make good use of what has been given to you. Yes, lay hold of that which is being offered to you time and again and delivered to you. But also, ask for it.

Pray for it.

Ask God to give you the wisdom and knowledge and understanding when you come up against an issue that you don't know what to do. It's not time to ask AI. It's not time to do a search. It's not time to find an article written by an expert.

It's time for us to humble ourselves as children and pray to God to give us wisdom. Let us pursue wisdom like buried treasure. Verse 4, if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, hidden treasures.

If you think of mining silver or looking for hidden treasure, it's good to remind ourselves that this analogy, this illustration is not talking about some sort of zero-sum game. First person to the heap of wisdom gets that part of wisdom and you don't get any.

It's not a zero-sum game, but it is a true treasure that has real value. Wisdom is a currency backed with glory. Seek her as silver. Search for her as for hidden treasures. Now, seeking wisdom, therefore, in Solomon's analogy, apparently requires a bit of digging.

There's going to be some hard work involved. It's not simply that, well, here's what I've already got. I'll try to make some good use of that. It's not simply I'll listen better, pay more attention to what's being offered and grab hold of that, the low-hanging fruit.

And I'll make sure to pray and ask God to give me the wisdom. And then I'm going to sit back and watch what happens. Now, there's some labor involved. Seek for her as silver. Search for her as for hidden treasures.

There's some digging, isn't there? As we grow in godliness and we are no longer satisfied with the baby mash put on the table for us, we've got to do some digging. Haven't you discovered, and maybe we understand this as part of growing older, it's not that wisdom comes natively, instinctively as we grow older, but as we grow older we recognize how complex our lives are as those made in the image of God.

We live before the face of God, glory-bound creatures with complexities that boggle the mind and stun the heart. How am I to love? You can ponder that a long time. How am I to love that person.

Versus that person? What about that person?

How do I love these people? How am I to forgive? Ever tackled that one? How am I to forgive? What a tangle. How am I to risk to get out of my safety and put things that are worthwhile on the line? How do I even risk?

And here's one that trips all of us up as well.

How am I to speak?

How am I to use words well, saying the right ones in the right order? How often I am stopped in my tracks. The trail is faded, the shadows askance, and a fading dusk. It's time to pray,.

O Lord, which way?

In the confession of our need, we must recognize there's labor that God has assigned for us. Proverbs 25, 2 says, It is the glory of God to conceal a matter. Do you hear that? It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

God has hidden some stuff because He wants us to hunt for it.

He has hidden some things.

Because He wants us to dig for it. That there is good in the labor. When there's no more low-hanging fruit, and all the precious metals have been easily sifted from the riverbed, and there's nothing for it but to dig, it's time to excavate, through hard labor, wisdom that God has ordained not only to thrill us, but also to change us.

Job 28. Read that chapter on your own. All about the excavation of wisdom. It's important to be reminded that wisdom will not simply fall upon our heads like rain. That in addition to prayer, we will often have to seek and search to labor in our listening, to work in our meditation, our study of God's Holy Word until we know what the will of the Lord is.