Wise and Understanding

Smarter choices come more easily when you are wise enough to wait for understanding.

The wise and the understanding. That is my message today.

In the book of Daniel, chapter 2:20-21, Daniel praises God by saying, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever.  For wisdom and might are His.  And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.”

Daniel singles out the fact that God does something specific for the wise and for the understanding.  He gives them wisdom and He gives them knowledge. It seems a bit unusual that someone who is already wise and understanding would be given even more.  But that’s exactly what God does.

What makes us wise and understanding is our ability to listen to someone greater than ourselves and to listen to things higher than the things we think of.  Perhaps Daniel is saying, God wants us to first listen to Him and next to listen to people who listen to Him.

If you are only going to listen to yourself, you better make sure you are wise and understanding or you may be listening to foolishness.  And if you are going to listen to others, you better make sure they listen to the One who can make them wise and understanding or you may be listening to the ignorant.

To whom much is given, God gives more.  He does this with those who are the wise and the understanding. So, how do we find these wise and understanding people?  Well, don’t look at what they do, look at who they are. The wise and the understanding are states of being.  They are known for being different, which is the reason the things they do are better than the things we do.

Listening to someone smarter than you are is one of the key attributes of those of us who are wise and understanding.  The wise and the understanding will listen to God more than you and I will listen to Him. Why is this so? Well, it’s because more of us live foolishly with what we know, and we are ignorant of the things we should know.  We lack wisdom and we lack knowledge.

We see our lives primarily consisting of the things we do and not the persons we are. The wise and the understanding are known for their persons; the foolish and the ignorant are known for what they do. The wise and the understanding are listeners for the Lord; they want to hear and to understand.  The foolish and the ignorant are listeners of themselves; they want to be heard and to be understood by others.

Both wisdom and knowledge are needed for the specific moment in time that you are in today.  Wisdom is knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do and knowledge is having the awareness of something that you ought not to be aware of yet.

Wisdom and knowledge are more about knowing and understanding yourself better, so that you know and understand other things more. Many of us live failing to realize the things God has reserved for us because we do not live as wise and understanding people.  Just like a parent doesn’t raise a child to be a failure in life, God did not create us to leave us to be failures.

But Daniel made it clear that God does not give His wisdom and knowledge to those of us who are foolish and without understanding. Before David became king of Israel, king Saul tried to kill him because of hatred and jealously. At times, David did not know what to do because he did not know what the next situation with Saul would bring.  But in 1 Samuel 18:14 the bible says, “David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him.”

David may not have known what to do but he knew that he should behave in a way that would not make the situation worse.  He behaved in a way that glorified God and so the glory of God’s goodness was reflected on him.  He was not foolish, as he understood himself so he knew what he could expect from Saul.  David had wisdom and knowledge because he was wise and understanding.

You may be in situations today where you do not know what to do.  You may be praying for an answer to something that is vexing you. Until your answer comes, learn to live wisely and with understanding.  Watch your behavior and wait for the Lord to move before moving and doing anything of your own thinking.

The bible says if you ask the Lord for wisdom He will give it to you.  But now you know that if you live wisely and with understanding, you position yourself to have His gift of wisdom and knowledge more easily.

A wise and understanding person will not make things more difficult while waiting for the knowledge of what to do. Smarter choices come more easily when we are wise enough to wait for understanding. Being wise and understanding will help you make better choices about the things you do, and it will keep you from being foolish and ignorant.

Live a Delivered Life. Love you.