Last night our gathering was called “Starving for Wisdom”.  The space during the service we call ‘Free Form’ involved writing words of wisdom on a blank dinner table setting.  Here were some of the entries:

“Be the change you’d like to see… or be willing to entertain the idea that you could be the answer to your prayer.”

“Be quick to listen and slow to get angry.”

“There are big and little things.”

“Audacity, not talent is what you need to be a successful artist.”

“So he farked you over.  Get over it.”

“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control…”

“Trust”

“It all comes out in the wash.”

“Do or do not.  There is no try.”

“To thine own self be true.”

“When life gives you lemons, throw them at the normals.”

“Roots of change and transformation are not found in self hatred.”

“It’s about the journey not the destination.”

“Love others.”

“Don’t go to sleep angry at your spouse.  Talk it out.  Work it out.”

“Choose your battles carefully.”

“Be willing to laugh at yourself.”

“Only women can turn an embryo into a boy, but only men can turn a boy into a man.”

“Don’t be afraid to speak and be wrong.  Admit when you are wrong.”

“Laugh often.”

“Love, love, love.”

“With 1 mouth and two ears, it is good to listen twice as much as you talk.”

“Treasure (and serve) the wife of your youth.”

“Don’t poop where you sleep.”

“Don’t do anything you don’t mind reading about in the newspaper.”

“We aren’t making watches.”

“Live to the point of tears.”

“Up, not down.”

“When in doubt, do something.  You can’t steer a bike that isn’t moving.”

“If you only love yourself, nobody can love you.”

“Listen to your heart.  Seek balance and justice.”

“In the same way we relate to our children according to who they are (personality, character, love languages), our heavenly Father relates to us.”

“Cigars happen.  Get over it.”

Write a comment and share your piece of wisdom…

Read “WISDOM PT 1 : Drowning in Information”

Read “WISDOM PT 2 : A Brush with the Wise”

Read “WISDOM PT 3 :  Jesus – the Foolish Wisdom of God”

In the cross, Jesus subverts all that we think is wise or powerful. Jesus says, “I hear that you are interested in power.  Here’s the clearest act of God’s power…  Not creating all that is seen and unseen.  Nope.  Not, taking down corrupt rulers and kingdoms.  Nope.  Not hurricanes and earthquakes and floods.  Not even close.  God’s power is revealed in one clear act – me hanging on a cross for you.  And I hear that you are interested in wisdom.  The clearest articulation of God’s wisdom is not captured in the vast science of nature, it’s not captured by the doctrines and scriptures of religion.  The clearest articulation of God’s wisdom is me hanging on a cross for you.”

The cross doesn’t ask us to say, “This really isn’t that foolish.  This makes a lot of good sense, you just got to know enough about theology.”  Because the extent to which we make the cross acceptable, dignified, beautiful, and no longer an offense to our wisdom is the extent to which we take control of the wisdom and power of God and use it for our own means.  Instead, the cross asks us to say, “Yep.  This is ridiculous.  So I wonder how God continues to break my arrogant heart and heal me all at once in the cross.”

Paul, with a little help from Eugene, describes this masterfully:

“The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer stupidity to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,

“I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as sham.”

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.  While the religious clamor for miraculous demonstrations and non-religous go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. The religious treat this like an anti-miracle—and non-religious pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both religious and non-religious—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to boast about someone, boast about the Lord Jesus.”

Read wisdom from the “Wisdom Potluck”