September 12th, 2019

“God grant me the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”

The things that cannot be changed, versus the things that should be changed, that is.  According to the Serenity Prayer, we need wisdom to know the difference. Wisdom is an elusive quality filled with paradox. For instance, the truly wise know that they lack wisdom. And those who are wise in their own eyes are the world’s fools.

On the other hand, we immediately recognize wisdom when we are in its presence. And, by golly, we need it!! Even for the seemingly self-assured, life is like a game of Blind Man’s Bluff, in which a player is blindfolded, spun around, disoriented, and then set loose to blindly find another player. The adult version of the game in Europe is called “Blind Man’s Buff”, because the blind man is punched and buffeted along the way.

Sounds like raising children to me. Or just the navigation of any relationship. Or decisions about how to live responsibly in this world. And when you drill down to deciding what can’t change as opposed to what must change, then you are desperately in need of wisdom.

Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” I won’t pretend to have the wisdom to know exactly what that verse means. One thing is clear though – wisdom does not come from within you. Wisdom begins and ends with God. So, why not start (and end) there?

“O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.”(For Guidance – BCP p. 832)