Proverbs 8:11 Making the Right Choices

Life is about choices. 

This becomes clearer the older I get.  Not that I’m getting old.

I am finding increasingly that there are more things I want to do than there is time to do them.

More books to read, movies to watch, people to stay in touch with, places to go, events to attend, activities to go to, even church ones.

Then I read a passage like this: Proverbs 8:11  For wisdom is better than jewels; and all desirable things cannot compare with her.

Well, how do I get wisdom?  How much time will that take?

It starts with an attitude.

The verse before that says:  Proverbs 8:10  Take my instruction and not silver, and knowledge rather than choicest gold.

The Hebrew word here for instruction is מוּסָר (myu-sar'), a very common word in Proverbs which deals with the whole idea of “discipline (of the moral nature), chastening, correction.”

Many of you will see this immediately as a something undesirable, like God is standing over you to judge you, condemn you, and constantly find fault with you. 

Think of it rather as a coach whose goal is your excellence. 

The base of any moral instruction, or training in wisdom, is the Bible.  That reveals the will of God in its broadest and greatest details.  As you increase your knowledge and understanding of that, that will give you a framework for that instruction.  Like the instruction manual that will tell you how to assemble all the various pieces (of your life) sitting in front of you.

But you still need that attitude.  That attitude that desires growth and understanding more than all the trinkets and flashy and things of this life.  And it will take time to learn the Bible.  Spend time every day.  Quality time.  Where you can think about you’re reading and after you’re done.