It's Obvious

The last couple of days I have been reading through Proverbs 8 & 9 as our church as a whole has been invited to read through the book of Proverbs for the entire month. As I was reading one big thing jumped out of these two chapters.

Wisdom & foolishness are obvious.

That's right, both of them are obvious. We tend to think that foolish behavior is obvious, but wisdom somehow is mysterious, even elusive. However, take a look at these two chapters. In these chapters wisdom is personified. Also in these two chapters wisdom builds her house at the highest point in the city. She prepares a great banquet & sends out messengers & maidens to issue an the invitation for all to come to her home. It's a metaphorical invitation to leave our current way of life & embrace the wisdom of God & a life built on the wisdom of God.

However, at the same time the Bible tells us foolishness is just as obvious. In Proverbs 9 foolishness also has her house at the highest point of the city. She also calls out inviting people come to her home. The way of foolishness is obvious. The invitation onto the foolish path is just as obvious.

Two things jumped out at me in these chapters. First, we have to stop pretending that godly wisdom is somehow this mystical thing that only some people can aspire to. Wisdom calls out to everyone. The Bible says wisdom calls out to the simple. You know what that means? It means you don't have to be the most intelligent person in the room in order to discover & embrace godly wisdom. Secondly, the difference between wisdom & foolishness is not how obvious one is & the other isn't. The difference is in how easy the two paths are. The path of foolishness doesn't require discipline or understanding. Foolishness even calls out that "stolen water is sweet." Foolishness is lazy, undisciplined, & ignores the obvious path of godly wisdom & makes excuses like, "That's just the way I am." That may be true, but it doesn't have to be that way forever.

There are two paths that we can take. There are two invitations being sent out to us. Which one will we choose to accept? Which one will we make the path of our life?