Wisdom from Above
"Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."
James 3:13-18 (ESV)
What does true wisdom look like?
Wisdom is something common in prayers, especially when we want to do well in some kind of role. We get it confused too often with knowledge, but I don't think that the two are exclusive. I think wisdom is more broad – you can be smart without being wise, but I don't think you can be wise without challenging yourself to some degree to learn. Knowledge on its own is what I'd consider to be "earthly wisdom," as opposed to true wisdom that we get from the Lord.
Earthly motivators will only encourage us to pursue one of the two – I'll let you guess which one. But James is a great book to read when you struggle with conforming to worldly standards and desires. God gave him a solid outlook on what our lives seen through a Godly lens should feel like. Ironically, we don't display that wisdom through what we know or think, but by what we do. Our actions are always more reflective of the contents of our hearts than our words – which can fool most, even ourselves.
Wise deeds are proof of true wisdom.
What qualities of our actions reflect true wisdom? Verse 17 says that true wisdom is:
- Pure
- Peace-loving
- Gentle
- Compliant (open to reason)
- Merciful
- Without pretense (impartial)
- Sincere
Pure Wisdom
Purity of our actions implies that the way we act and treat people aligns with Scripture. Does our behavior reflect the way of the Word or the way of the world? Kind of obvious, but it sets apart what a lot of people consider to be "wise" – "accepting others just the way they are" is something that a lot of people would call wise, but when you compare it to the theme of humanity in comparison to God, it misses the mark. While the world tells us to accept everyone "just how they are," the Bible tells us that while we should love everyone regardless of the sin they carry, we should never accept the sin itself. In other words, "love others just the way they are, but encourage them to allow God to convict them of the sin they hold in their hearts through a relationship with Him." Doesn't really roll of the tongue quite as well but hey, sometimes real wisdom means we have to split hairs.
Peace-loving Wisdom
Unity is something that's easy to lobby for, but a lot more difficult to actually pursue. There's a battle a lot of us experience with wanting to pursue peace while keeping our pride intact at the same time. I've struggled a lot in the past, with wanting to keep peace by avoiding confrontation and with trying to ensure I have the most respect possible from others. Both of those things can be noble efforts, but we have to be willing to bend at some point. What I mean by that is that sometimes we can achieve peace with others while avoiding confrontation, and sometimes we can achieve it while gaining the respect of those around us. But most of the time, it's not that simple. Being peace-loving means standing for the source of true peace, in a way that displays said peace. We should all desire to avoid confrontation when we can, but don't be surprised when the creatures that invented conflict try to initiate it regardless of your efforts.
Gentle Wisdom
There is so much value in how you share wisdom that changes the way people receive the content of it. It's really frustrating to see people speaking the truth in a way that makes them straight up unlikeable. Politics are filled with that. It feels so exhausting to agree with someone when you don't want to. It's even more exhausting to try and justify to other people why something is truth when the source of it leave such a terrible taste in your mouth. In other words, there's enough power true wisdom – there's no need for us to "reinforce" it with aggression or force.
Now I know that as a man, I'm apparently supposed to struggle with gentleness more than I do, but I also wanna be clear that there's a happy medium there. Gentleness is a powerful, God-given virtue that distinguishes a genuine Christian. There's a level of firmness that we're meant to keep, too. Don't confuse gentleness with softness or a lack of boldness, because there's only so much that the Lord will do with someone that's too afraid to jump off of the fence.
Compliant Wisdom
That being said, spiritual wisdom doesn't come screaming out the gate – it listens, it considers, it builds up. For real spiritual wisdom, we need to be willing to put all of our preconceived notions on the same level as anything that comes in – at least before we make judgements. I think a pillar for any kind of wisdom is being good at communicating, and unfortunately, I think that while pretty much everyone wants to push good communication, most of us aren't willing to initiate the difficult parts of it. One of those difficult parts being the willingness to keep assumptions away from what we consider to be reality, at least until we can listen to someone else's full perspective. I've talked about campus preachers before, and they're a great example of both sides of that issue. Obviously, a lot of the ones that I've heard seem to make a lot of assumptions on people's intentions. While there are likely some crucial parts of Scripture that a lot of them don't understand or practice, I think it would help them a lot to understand the past experiences that others might have with Christianity or religion. On the other hand, I think that their intentions shouldn't be assumed. They clearly think that they're doing the right thing, so maybe the first concern should be why they believe that, before hating them for believing it. How much weight are we giving our own intention and experiences, over the intentions and experiences of others?
Merciful Wisdom
Given that the common theme of all these qualities is that none of them come completely naturally to us, I want to point out that mercy in wisdom is usually the quality we have to work on the most. We have this perception of "justice" that ultimately revolves around protecting our pride and making sure that everyone else's is on the same level as ours, as far as we're concerned. In other words, we only really give reciprocal mercy, as if we're just balancing our tab with others. Obviously that contradicts what Scripture tells us, but it ends up limiting the amount of love we receive, too. Compare the love and joy that the prodigal surrounds himself with from Luke 15 with the bitterness that his older son kept himself trapped in. That's not to say that mercy always means welcoming others into a trusted role in your life, but allowing yourself to enter "total rejection mode" is never wise, and I'm a firm believer that there's only so much that the Lord will do with that.
Impartial Wisdom
I think that subconscious thought that certain people are more deserving of our favor is rooted in the fact that we desire approval or favor from people, before we desire the approval of God. Everyone is "fearfully and wonderfully made," but then again, it only makes sense that we value more to be desired by those we desire ourselves. Should we have a perfect understanding of the measure of God’s love for us, it would be so inconceivably great that there would be no concept of those we desire vs those we don’t. There wouldn’t be consideration for what someone can give us, or what they’ve done to us in the past, because we’d have no reason and no motivation to dwell on either one. How did Jesus value the lives of His disciples, compared to the lives of the of the men who tortured Him, compared to those that didn’t interact with Him in any way? He valued them all as if they were His own. No – more so. Much more so. What does that kind of wisdom look like, when it’s shared by a group of believers?
Sincere Wisdom
Sincerity is what I think I value the most in wisdom. Not that I necessarily should, but something about sincerity – pure genuine, honesty – seems so just, and good. Maybe not painless, but it takes away the need for so much uncertainty and anxiety. To know exactly what’s in someone else’s heart – a really ugly truth, but a truth nonetheless. Just like pure wisdom is a reflection of how our will lines up with God’s, sincere wisdom is a reflection of how our will lines up with our actions. This is where I think everybody falls into three categories. Those that aren’t sincere – whose actions don’t reflect their real intentions. Lies are the easiest way to kill painlessly, and you can only be judged if you’re caught in one. Then there are those that are sincere, but not pure. Their actions are a display of their true intentions, even though their intentions are selfish, evil, sinful – human. Then, the few who abide in pure wisdom. They understand God’s will as He’s communicated it to them, and they act in accordance with it. In that way, it lines up with their own will as it now lines up with the Lord’s. While our biggest goal is to stay in the third category as much as we can, we know that we’ll often find ourselves in the other two, 90% of which is in the first – if not because of our cowardice, because of our pride. Because what’s sin, without consequences?
A trick question, of course.
Conclusion
I think it's really a losing battle, trying to only focus on all these things individually like one huge balancing act. I talk about them to give myself a better idea of what Godly wisdom looks like compared to worldly wisdom, but I don't want to fall into the trap of dressing worldly wisdom up to look more righteous than it is. Instead, I want to make it clear that when we're making a real effort to align our will with God's, our wisdom will start to look like this regardless. And it'll only show itself through the initiative we take, and not through empty words. Take your words out of the picture – it's only what you do that makes any impact. Focus on action instead of acting.
I wish I could act wisely all the time, but I have a lot of sinful qualities that I get caught on a lot, and they make me pretty foolish. Fear can be a big one. I'm afraid of what might happen if I trust God with the things I can't control, as if I had dominion over them in the first place. Pride is probably the biggest one. I can't stand the feeling that someone's perception of me could be anything less than what I think of myself. Maybe that says more about how my sin distorts my own perspective than it says about the discernment of someone else. But I don't count that as an unintentional flaw in my character – no good virtue comes naturally. Not to us, anyway – we're made to be foolish by default. Anyone that's genuinely ignorant wasn't made that way, they just never got far from the starting line. And while our first instinct is to condemn them for slowing anyone else down, our first priority should be encouraging them to catch up. True wisdom begets more wisdom, and we were never given the option to take the love part out of it. Give yourself grace, and give others just as much.
Wisdom was never meant to be hoarded. It was meant to be shared – outside of any words written or spoken.
"Give me Your wisdom, and don't let me be the last person to have it."