ISO Wisdom (various Psalms)
I told my husband last night that something terribly obvious had escaped me all my life (or maybe I’ve forgotten it in my rapidly advancing “old” age). No! Please don’t ask me; you would laugh and think me rather clueless. But then again, I am rather clueless quite often and have thought of myself as such for most of my life.
When I was in the fifth grade, several of my classmates were tested for the “gifted” program, meaning if we qualified, we would be pulled out of regular classes at various times and our classes would be supplemented in different ways over the remaining seven years of school. For testing, we were taken to a small room one at a time over a period of a few weeks. We were shown pictures (ink blot tests if I remember correctly, which again is doubtful), asked questions, given problems to solve—the full battery of tests. Somehow, I came out on the “winning” side and was slapped with the label of being “gifted.” Somehow, other truly brilliant people I matriculated with were not. As I now know, I am a very good test taker, which solves much of the mystery for me. Apparently, some of them were not for various reasons, yet they’ve gone on to brilliant careers and have led very successful lives. Being told I was smart was both a blessing and a burden; a blessing because it gave me some confidence very much lacking, but a burden because I felt I had to live up to the label and spent years pretending I had a clue. But it is a conundrum I have pondered over the years. How in the world did anyone ever think I was smart?
The reality is that I have been a “dummy” searching for wisdom since I was nine, and I began with the ultimate source. Having been given my first big-girl Bible for Christmas that year, I began eagerly reading and searching it for nuggets. I can’t say I understood even a fraction of what I read from my little leather KJV Bible, but I did treasure it, and I did read it often—especially the parts that were easier to “understand” such as the Psalms (so . . . I’ve always liked poetry). Now in looking back from the half-century mark, I can see the true gift of wisdom I was given, and I find reassurances of it scattered throughout the book of Psalms, especially some of my favorite childhood readings of it. I was clueless, but God was not!
In the Psalms, I have found my early reading was “delight in the law of the LORD” and my meditations helped to “firmly plant me by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season” (Ps. 1, NASB). I have discovered that the LORD really has been my shepherd who prepared a pasture for me I could never have foreseen (Ps. 23). Through the desert times in my life, I have learned that I thirst for the living God and that times will come when I despair, but hope rises again in me and praise wells up for the One I serve (Ps. 42). I have wondered that God in His great compassion and mercy would “blot out my transgressions” and “wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,” not because of anything I have done because He doesn’t delight in sacrifice but in “a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart,” which He will never despise (Ps. 51). I have hoped in Him, desiring to “dwell in the shelter of the Most High” and “abide in the shadow of the Almighty” that He would be my refuge (Ps. 91). I have tasted and seen that “He is good” and “His lovingkindness is everlasting,” unlike the evil world in which we live (Ps. 34, 106, 118, 136). I have gained light by walking on God’s path, by using His lamp, the Word (Ps. 119). I have developed the habit of looking up at “my help [that] comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth” when my natural tendency is to look down and feel broken and defeated (Ps. 121, 123). I have been “glad when they said to me, ‘let us go to the house of the LORD’” (Ps. 122).
Basically, I have spent most of my life searching for wisdom, and He has found me; He knows me and all there is about me—my past, my present, my future—and “such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it” (Ps. 139). This entire Psalm speaks to a God who knows my heart, any anxious thoughts I might have, my hurtful ways and still compassionately loves me and chooses to “lead me in the everlasting way.”
Today’s takeaway is this: my intelligence doesn’t matter (and certainly not a worldly system’s evaluation of it), my wisdom won’t stand, my successes and accomplishments (no matter how grand or lacking) matter not one bit—the substance of what I am and what I do was created to be all about and all for Him and His glory. As Daniel put it to King Nebuchadnezzar when he interpreted his dream, “He who reveals mysteries has made known to you what will take place, but as for me, this mystery has not been revealed to me for any wisdom residing in me more than in any other living man, but for the purpose of making the interpretation known to the king, and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind” (Dan. 2:29b-30).
Like Nebuchadnezzar, I feel quite sure that I can’t even begin to untangle much less understand the thoughts of my own mind, but more importantly, like Daniel, I understand that there is One who can, and it is to Him I will go when I am in search of wisdom.
When I was in the fifth grade, several of my classmates were tested for the “gifted” program, meaning if we qualified, we would be pulled out of regular classes at various times and our classes would be supplemented in different ways over the remaining seven years of school. For testing, we were taken to a small room one at a time over a period of a few weeks. We were shown pictures (ink blot tests if I remember correctly, which again is doubtful), asked questions, given problems to solve—the full battery of tests. Somehow, I came out on the “winning” side and was slapped with the label of being “gifted.” Somehow, other truly brilliant people I matriculated with were not. As I now know, I am a very good test taker, which solves much of the mystery for me. Apparently, some of them were not for various reasons, yet they’ve gone on to brilliant careers and have led very successful lives. Being told I was smart was both a blessing and a burden; a blessing because it gave me some confidence very much lacking, but a burden because I felt I had to live up to the label and spent years pretending I had a clue. But it is a conundrum I have pondered over the years. How in the world did anyone ever think I was smart?
The reality is that I have been a “dummy” searching for wisdom since I was nine, and I began with the ultimate source. Having been given my first big-girl Bible for Christmas that year, I began eagerly reading and searching it for nuggets. I can’t say I understood even a fraction of what I read from my little leather KJV Bible, but I did treasure it, and I did read it often—especially the parts that were easier to “understand” such as the Psalms (so . . . I’ve always liked poetry). Now in looking back from the half-century mark, I can see the true gift of wisdom I was given, and I find reassurances of it scattered throughout the book of Psalms, especially some of my favorite childhood readings of it. I was clueless, but God was not!
In the Psalms, I have found my early reading was “delight in the law of the LORD” and my meditations helped to “firmly plant me by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season” (Ps. 1, NASB). I have discovered that the LORD really has been my shepherd who prepared a pasture for me I could never have foreseen (Ps. 23). Through the desert times in my life, I have learned that I thirst for the living God and that times will come when I despair, but hope rises again in me and praise wells up for the One I serve (Ps. 42). I have wondered that God in His great compassion and mercy would “blot out my transgressions” and “wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,” not because of anything I have done because He doesn’t delight in sacrifice but in “a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart,” which He will never despise (Ps. 51). I have hoped in Him, desiring to “dwell in the shelter of the Most High” and “abide in the shadow of the Almighty” that He would be my refuge (Ps. 91). I have tasted and seen that “He is good” and “His lovingkindness is everlasting,” unlike the evil world in which we live (Ps. 34, 106, 118, 136). I have gained light by walking on God’s path, by using His lamp, the Word (Ps. 119). I have developed the habit of looking up at “my help [that] comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth” when my natural tendency is to look down and feel broken and defeated (Ps. 121, 123). I have been “glad when they said to me, ‘let us go to the house of the LORD’” (Ps. 122).
Basically, I have spent most of my life searching for wisdom, and He has found me; He knows me and all there is about me—my past, my present, my future—and “such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it” (Ps. 139). This entire Psalm speaks to a God who knows my heart, any anxious thoughts I might have, my hurtful ways and still compassionately loves me and chooses to “lead me in the everlasting way.”
Today’s takeaway is this: my intelligence doesn’t matter (and certainly not a worldly system’s evaluation of it), my wisdom won’t stand, my successes and accomplishments (no matter how grand or lacking) matter not one bit—the substance of what I am and what I do was created to be all about and all for Him and His glory. As Daniel put it to King Nebuchadnezzar when he interpreted his dream, “He who reveals mysteries has made known to you what will take place, but as for me, this mystery has not been revealed to me for any wisdom residing in me more than in any other living man, but for the purpose of making the interpretation known to the king, and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind” (Dan. 2:29b-30).
Like Nebuchadnezzar, I feel quite sure that I can’t even begin to untangle much less understand the thoughts of my own mind, but more importantly, like Daniel, I understand that there is One who can, and it is to Him I will go when I am in search of wisdom.
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