I want to be wise, I think!

10The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. 11So God replied, “Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies—12I will give you what you asked for! 1 Kings 3:10-12

We should all search for wisdom. But, what is wisdom? Dictionary.com defines Wisdom as 

"the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment"

Wisdom is significantly different than being smart and Wisdom is not something you can just learn from a book. Life itself is the only way to acquire wisdom. In my opinion, the key to being wise is judgment. I wish we could teach judgment to kids. IF this were a class at school, the world would be a much better place. We spend so much time teaching math, english, social studies, and science, but a class on good judgment, developing wisdom, could be a life changer.

Solomon acquired judgment as a gift from God. It would be a difficult thing to teach. I can't really put this skill in a textbook breaking it down to chapters, tests, and quizzes. It really is a gift from God and often just developed through experience. Real WISDOM is learned by life. A life full of challenges, successes, failures and stress help develop our judgment and ultimately our wisdom. We need to try new things, meet new people, and fail. Yes, failure might be the best way to develop wisdom and judgment. IF we learn from our experiences and, yes, our failures, we will move closer and closer to true wisdom. We can't be afraid to fail. We can't be afraid to try new things and break out of the norms of this life. God knows this. That's one of the reasons there is trouble in this world. That's one of the reasons we are allowed to go through the stresses and pain in our lives. We need to grow from all of those experiences. Many times we fight the struggles. We avoid pain. I am not advocating pursuit of failure. I am saying our attitude through failure is so important. If we treat every experience as a chapter in our lessons to learn wisdom, we will be happier and more successful as we grow old. 

Dear Lord, I love you. I do seek wisdom. I praise you for the life you have brought me through. I praise you for the joys and the sorrow. I have grown through all of them and feel wiser because of them. Continue to help me grow. Give me experiences and failures to continue that growth even as I draw nearer to the end of my life. I love you Lord and honor your infinite wisdom, power and love. Amen!