Wisdom for Life
What is wisdom and what is its role in life, love and leadership?
Life requires wisdom to be enjoyed and lived. Rejection or lack of wisdom reduces your ability to make the right decisions whether practical, relational, emotional, mental, or spiritual. This affects different areas of life including your moral, ethical, practical, financial or social standing.
Wisdom equips you with knowledge, understanding, discernment, judgment, and the ability to act prudently. This gives you a good reputation, credibility, and a healthy community status.
Wisdom is defined as the ability or result of an ability to think and act utilizing knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight; the soundness of mind. (The Oxford Dictionary)
King Solomon was known for his wisdom when he wrote the following: “… for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young – let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance.” (Proverbs Chapter 1, The Holy Bible, New International Version, Zondervan)
In this introduction to his collection of proverbs, King Solomon indicated that wisdom is intrinsically linked to a number of key ingredients: understanding, discipline, prudence, doing what is right and fair, knowledge and discretion. He also added that there were two active disciplines we need to have in order to gain wisdom from what is known around us:
- listen to learn,
- discern to decide.
A wise person is not necessarily an expert. A wise person has not achieved his potential yet for they are always learning. Wisdom is about knowing, feeling and doing.
To gain wisdom is to gather information, gain knowledge, develop insights, accept input from others, and to process them into practical steps to improve life for you and others. Wisdom is about the transfer of learning from head knowledge in to the day-to-day practice of life, love and leadership. That is why attending Bible College is not just about learning but about being equipped for the ministry to which God is calling you.
Here are three simple steps to help you on your journey to gain wisdom from every situation in life, love and leadership. Whenever you are faced with a situation, event, decision, or circumstance ask these simple questions:
1. What can I learn from this?
2. What is the right and fair thing to do here?
3. What behaviour do I need to change for the better?
The prudent and wise thing to do is that once you get your answers, set them in motion. You may need to read books, ask others, listen to wise people, or you may need to get some coaching and mentoring to assist you to change and grow.
This post was written by Dr Albert P Haddad, a contributor to the leadership courses in Axx.