Wisdom or Consequences

There are two schools in life, two teachers that can direct our decisions and our paths- Wisdom or Consequences.

Wisdom comes with a price for you have to be willing to learn and hear from God’s Word and seek out the counsel of others.  Sometimes this is painful, because there may be the need to pull back from what you were planning, or say no to your will.  It is always an intentional thing to pursue wisdom, and a humble thing to admit that you don’t have enough of it on your own.  The school of wisdom is available to anyone, but not many choose it.  Proverbs 1:20 says that “Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares…”  Yet, the simple love their simple ways, the foolish persist in their foolishness.  Why?  Because it’s much easier to keep doing what we’re doing, even if we’re getting lousy results.  Wisdom’s school has a high tuition fee- it’s called obedience.

Consequences on the other hand, has no enrollment fee.  In fact, if you don’t enroll in Wisdom, by default you get consequences.  How many times have you heard someone say that they want to make their own mistakes, they want to learn by experience?  Even I have said that.  The only problem with this way of thinking is that I am learning the hard way and eventually I am paying a price for it in the end.  That’s the deceptiveness of going to the school of consequences.

We recently went through a series at our church http://www.gccnh.com that helped us learn how to make good decisions and minimize mistakes.  We talked about the three legs of a stool being like an analogy to help us in this process: 1- The Word of God, 2- The leading of the Holy Spirit, 3- The godly counsel of others.  All of this is good information, but unless it’s applied truth, we still will go to the school of consequences.

Some people think God will just bail them out of bad choices or rescue them from the wrong path.  In fact, the Bible teaches us that whatever we sow, we will reap.  So, to say that I can do what I want and then “everything will work together for good in the end,” is not only a misinterpretation of the Bible, but it’s remaining simple and foolish in our thinking.  If God is so willing to show us the right way, to give us wisdom, let’s take it.  Not only will we grow and avoid mistakes, but we’ll be able to help others with the wisdom that God gives to us.

Wisdom or Consequences?