How do
we teach
our
young people to be wise?
by Liz
Harding
The Bible
tells us that Jesus grew in wisdom and knowledge and that God was
pleased with him. In the first chapter of 2 Chronicles, we read of God
asking a young King Solomon to virtually name what he wants. Solomon is
smart and asks for wisdom. God rewarded Solomon for not being selfish
and self-centred, promising him many great things far beyond anything
in Solomon’s wildest dreams.
 From as early as I can remember I have been aware that
wisdom is important. I am not sure what instilled it in me, but I knew
I needed wisdom in order to lead a life with good relationships, both
personal and professional. I knew I needed wisdom so I could make good
choices in life. Maybe I was not as smart as those around me, I don’t
know, but I knew that I needed wisdom. It has been a central theme in
my conversations with God. I believe our young people today need to
understand wisdom and how they can attain it.
James
talks about wisdom in verse five of the first chapter of his letter. He
writes “If you need wisdom, you should ask God, and it will be given to
you. God is generous and won’t correct you for asking.”
From this
Bible verse it is apparent that God is as generous with his wisdom as
he was with Solomon, and the great thing is that he wants us to have
it. There are no conditions. The passage does not say you have to be a
certain age, gender, ethnic background, rich, poor, or anything else in
order to have this wisdom. This is good news for me, because if wisdom
is given freely then all I have to do is ask for it and be willing to
accept it.
It is a common mistake to think that wisdom comes
with age alone. I am here to say categorically that wisdom does not
automatically come with age. I have made some pretty stupid mistakes in
my life, and not all of them were made when I was younger. I am sure
that you, like me, can name some older people of whom you stand in awe
and say "Wow, they are wise." But let’s be honest; we could also
list those who are not quite so wise. And we could do the same for the
younger age group as well as for those of us who are middle aged.
In James
chapter 3, verses 13 to 18 , he talks about two types of wisdom ––
earthly and heavenly. James also tells how we can recognize the
difference. He describes earthly wisdom as full of bitter envy and
selfishness. This gives us a tool to recognize if our own or others’
behaviour is earthly or heavenly.
It is
important to teach our young people how to discern earthly wisdom and a
challenge for us to model wisdom from above. Nowhere in the Bible do we
find instructions for us to be full of envy, bitterness or selfishness.
These behaviours are never life-giving and are always destructive. It
is not an easy practice to go against the flow when people tell you to
look out for yourself; to make yourself number one because no-one else
is going to; to not care about others because you have enough to do to
take care of yourself. The message comes across as: don’t worry
yourself about how you treat others, they will just have to deal with
it as that is who you are.
Jesus’
Gospel message is exactly the opposite. The verses from James challenge
me to be honest with myself and God about envy, bitterness and
behaviours that are self-seeking in my own life. They challenge me to
live the way that I live.
Where are
you not being honest with yourself –– about those things in your life
which are not honouring to God or to you in your Christian
walk?
James also
describes a wisdom from above; Godly wisdom. He describes it as pure,
peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits,
without partiality or hypocrisy. You may well ask how on earth can we
accomplish all of this. The good news is we do not, and cannot, do it
by ourselves. God does not even expect us to. We need to be in a
partnership with God. It is only in the power of God’s Holy Spirit that
we are able to accomplish God’s work. The discipline is seeking God’s
wisdom and receiving God’s Holy Spirit to empower us. The list of
attributes that describes Godly wisdom helps us to recognize it when we
experience it in our own lives.
In the
last verse of chapter 3, James talks about peacemakers. A contemporary
English version of the Bible puts it like this. "When peacemakers plant
seeds of peace they will harvest justice." If you hang around me for
long enough andyou say, "That’s not fair", my response will be "Whoever
told you that life is fair was lying to you."
Life if
not fair! Everyone can attest to that, but as Christians I believe two
of our greatest callings are to be peacemakers and to strive for
justice. These two things may cause us personal hardship, may cause us
to be unpopular with friends and even family, but I believe we are
called to take a stand for justice.
How can we
encourage our young people to ask God for wisdom and be peacemakers by
seeking justice? I believe that it starts with our example. I also
think we need to teach young people the characteristics of Heavenly
wisdom and ask the question "How do we respond to injustice in both the
world and our communities when we are filled with heavenly wisdom?"
It may
sometimes appear that wisdom only comes with age, but if we look, we
will often see wisdom in young Christians. God’s wisdom is freely
available to all … we only need ask.
14 February 2006
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