Day 3345 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Timothy 4:12 NIV

What is the age of wisdom?

At what point are we allowed an entrance ticket to see it? Does there come a specific time, a date or day upon which we’ve finally crossed the line of some socially agreed upon and therefore measurable amount of knowledge that’s considered enough to construct the opening of insight? Can perspective be more perfectly proven by the aged? Indeed, does there, like alcohol and after parties, exist a limit wherein we must be this tall before we’re allowed to ride along the rails of reason?

Is the rationale of rationality reserved for only those most readily revered and respected, rights received only after years of undertaking the study of the art of sagaciousness?

Well, you’d certainly think so if you were to listen to the world’s expectations for one to be considered worth listening to. Indeed, this place seems to have quite strict requirements most firmly planted in place for one to be worth the humility needed to hear whatever they may have to say. And yet it seems that even with such widespread and mostly agreed upon standards of intellect needing to be met before anyone might have the mental acuity to have something worthy to say, to hear, still it’s as if most words still fall upon ears mostly deaf.

Why is that, other than again, the obvious need of humility to exist within a heart for said heart to seek out the growth potential of not assuming we know everything so finely that we needn’t ever hear anything any other may have to speak on? In fact I dare say such audacious arrogance is not only the most obvious reason for our world’s lack of reason, but so too this ongoing insistence that wisdom can only exist within each individual, and still somehow mostly within those individuals always oldest than most.

Yes, our apparent understanding of wisdom is that it’s an entirely personal venture most perfectly produced by a person for themselves alone, not in any way so vast so as to wait as if a prize won by those who work outside themselves and beyond their preconceived opinions as to what’s worth knowing.

Such is why we still look upon the youthful with a certain degree of disagreement as designed inside a doubt so deep that we decide to disbelieve before we’re even near them enough to hear them. In truth, this whole outlook has been at times one of those things that’s become so commonplace that I myself have sometimes wondered just what it is that I’m doing here. For I’m not considered old enough by many, by most perhaps, to have any business sharing something so deep as Biblical truth.

Sitting here at 36, I’m likely considered somewhat a young buck on this scene as it were. And in that there’s a certain heaviness, a sort of rambunctious responsibility that seems somedays to buck my beliefs in an effort to spur me back into my senses where I’d never in a million years seek to pretend I know what I’m talking about in regard to a book written thousands of years before my time, a book written to the world wrapped in wisdom’s laws and rules of righteousness I’ve fractured more than a time or two thus far.

Who am I to do this thing, this sharing of Scripture, this pretending I’ve either the ability or acuity to expound upon the exactness of God’s sovereign mercy seeking to breathe for us blackhearts a Word worth its weight in both wrath and yet too in hope for these souls so long starved for such things as love and opportunity. Indeed, seems anymore all we know of love and opportunity are to combine the two into our now seeing love as only an opportune time in which we pretend to care about others while leaving them still starving and stagnant.

But again, who am I to say such things? Who am I to cry out a call about things many would say I can’t possibly know about?

For again I am younger than some. But then too I’m older than a few. And so here I sit inside both the middle of ages as well as the weight of misunderstanding as to if I’ve even the ability to perceive what wisdom is, what wisdom does, where wisdom goes. Older than some who I too could assume know less than I, lived less thus far and so must have seen less, learned less upon which to have built any reason for me to believe they know more than I sometimes think I might. Younger than many from whom I still seek to glean and gain a measure of what they’ve had more years to learn than I have as of yet.

And I think that therein lies the confused complexity of what we’ve come to make of wisdom. It seems always beyond everyone, but yet we look to those older than us to help us learn what they’ve found, and then at the same time we tend to discount those younger who haven’t possibly seen things we’ve known. And so it seems that we’re sort of lost inside this incessant struggle as to who has wisdom rather than what wisdom is.

We’re altogether more concerned about the debating of whether or not one another can have wisdom than we are about seeking a further growth in understanding for the better of everyone.

Something that seems in no way anything new as it’s talked about even here in Scripture.

Why have we as humans always sought to look down upon one another rather than appreciating the differing perspectives and different experiences that each of us have had in life? Is it that we don’t think we can learn anything from one another’s trials or triumphs? Or rather is it that we’re not willing to learn anything from one another as we sit inside this assumption that wisdom is ours to seek in whatever measure we think it should exist as determined by our own particular abilities to understand and grow.

It’s just another fight most days, one waged at times between a person and their own failures to grow in the steadied increases we’d otherwise like to assume make for the most obvious measured growth proven across years always improved over the last. Or too this war might be waged between ages, groups of those having lived a certain amount of years, finding apparently in that difference of existence reason to doubt in one another rather than listen to one another.

And yet here we’re told perhaps a better perspective as to where our war should be waged. Not against ourselves or even against those who think themselves better than us, but rather against the arrogance which achieves such misunderstandings. It’s to fight against both our not being heard for whatever reason someone else may not listen but also to be willing to listen ourselves to someone other than ourselves. For the truth is that wisdom has never been a prize for any of us to claim.

Rather wisdom is a journey for all of to take.

And so no, let no one look down on you. Let yourself not look down on others. Let none of us continue ahead lost in this vanity that says we shouldn’t listen to anything but our own thoughts, our own assumptions, our own presumptions. Because to allow such things to remain in our hearts, our minds, our lives is to invite immaturity to remain. It’s to insist that we not grow beyond what either we or in this case others might assume we’re presently capable of doing, of being, of knowing.

For our lives are not a matter of what others think nor what we think of others. No, our lives here are to be best lived as if each of us are examples, leaders all seeking to lead one another in both humility and honesty toward the mutual edification prescribed in Scripture. We’re here not to reach some certain age or amount of knowledge and then coast onward ahead until we’re out of time in this assumption that we’ve accomplished all for which He created us.

No, we’re each here living different lives in different ways which afford us different skills and different struggles which are all only beneficial if shared so that our struggles might be helped with another’s skill or that our skill may help soothe another’s struggle.

So no, let us not let any look down upon us because we are young and therefore likely considered inexperienced or unwise. Why? Because they will. That’s what people do, it’s what we all do. And we all do it because it’s what pride inspires us to do. Our vanity as constructed by an disastrous ego deconstructing itself inside depravity and desire and darkness the like, it demands we find any way possible to assume ourselves better than another, better than all others, simply for the sake of safety for our selfishness found inside our foolishness as seen and shown in our acting always as if we’re better than everyone else.

And one of the quickest ways, the easiest ways that we often resort to in this effort given unto protecting our pride at the encouragement of ego is to look at the numbers.

We are in many ways a very numbers based people in every way possible. From dollars to decimals, we rank and review everything in terms of numerical evaluation. But what we’ve seemingly forgotten in this constant rush to disqualify everyone who is different from us is that numbers can in fact be somewhat misleading sometimes.

Like age for instance.

See, there’s numerical maturity and then there’s spiritual maturity. Numerical maturity is the simplistic calculation of our age based up the number of years currently removed from our initial arrival on this earth. It’s how old we are as figured by subtracting from the current year the year in which we were born. Me, 36, born in ‘88, 2024, 36 years in between. My dad, 62 and turning the corner to 63, born in 1962, again, 2024, 62 going on 63 removed. You get the idea I hope.

But then there’s spiritual maturity which actually has almost nothing to do with numerical maturity. Because as it turns out, it seems that God’s not quite as blown away with numbers and measurements as we seem to be. Guess that’s just because as He is the One who created measurement and numbers and the calculating of things as done in this mind we’ve been given designed to do such things, well I assume it’s not all that exciting of a thing if you’re the one who thought of it.

Anyway.

Whereas numerical maturity is the number of years separating our birth from today, spiritual maturity is the amount of distance between who we are now compared to who we were when we first heard of Christ. And despite our penchant for always trying, you can’t really measure that, which is perhaps one big reason as to why so few seem willing to agree to it. Again, it’s quite clearly a humility thing, and thus an issue of perpetual struggle for all of us in some ways, but even more so for those who just refuse to lose this sense of pride that says they’ve always the right to pretend they know everything without then the ability to learn anything more.

But that’s on them.

As for us and this conversation for today, our being looked down upon by those who think themselves wiser or better able to speak to the differing aspects of life as lived on this earth will say that we’ve no business claiming we understand anything as we’re too young, too inexperienced, too new to this whole living thing. But you see, they’re doing all they can to discount those younger because they can’t see beyond their own lack of wisdom.

Because the truth is that it’s not the number of years that someone’s lived their life that matters but rather the amount of life lived in those years that amounts to the wisdom one may have to share with those who have ears to hear.

And to be honest, some of us have just lived more than those who have lived longer. Now that may be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon how each life has been lived, but wisdom can even be found in making mistakes should they prove themselves lessons we glean which make us better, stronger, more courageous or humble going forward. And that’s why it’s foolish for anyone and everyone who doesn’t care to know any better to look down on people simply for things such as age or youthful appearance, but it’s also foolish for us to worry about being looked down upon so much so that we allow it to keep us from doing what God calls us to do.

Because you see, we think, or rather are inspired to assume, that wisdom is the wealth of the aged, but in truth, wisdom is merely a matter of the amount of life lived, not the length of life lived. Because in reality, some have lived the equivalent of 50 years by the time they’re 25 whereas someone who’s 50 may have the experiences of a mere 25 year old. Some of us live fast, some live hard, some know pain while others know only gain. But rather than what we know, I contend that wisdom is instead how much we’re willing to learn.

For wisdom doesn’t seek to prove itself in some wealth of facts or figures which we feel form the foundation of wisdom’s existence. No, wisdom is merely the ability to know something while still knowing that there’s more we need to learn.

And so we need to stop letting the world look down on us as if we know nothing, and too, we ourselves need to not look down on anyone else either as all of us have something to say or share which can and will help someone else. And while many may not agree with that being a beginning of wisdom, how is it that any other can know what’s on our heart as carved by God through all He’s led us to and gotten us through? No, seems to me that our story is a book written by God through us, and so it’s not for anyone else to say what He can and will do with that.

For only we and He know the past we’ve lived and it’s within that past that wisdom is waiting to be found, not in the agreement of others that we’ve lived long enough to know something.

No, we all know plenty enough for a testimony worth sharing. Wisdom is merely the courage to share all those many lessons learned inside shame and sorrow rather than allowing fear of man’s misunderstanding to keep us from doing so. And so no, it’s not a matter of how long we’ve lived but rather that we’ve allowed ourselves to learn the lessons we’ve lived through. Because it’s not what we do or how long we’ve done it that matters but that we’re better for it and still growing from it.

And that is something that all of us need, to learn from past mistakes and seek the courage and humility that allows us to fight against making them again going forward. And if we can help one another along this struggled line we call life, why not? Why not set out every day to live our lives as examples of things this world doesn’t care to be or see anymore? Why not seek to “live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us”?

1 Peter 2:12 by the way.

Because the simple fact is that at the end of the day, those who don’t like us and refuse to hear us won’t anyway. But if we allow those stubborn and stiff-necked to inspire us to become the same, well then we’re no different than this brokenhearted world so filled with those who refuse to try anymore.

And that’s simply not in any way who God called us to be nor what He gives us the opportunity to do.

No. Christ came to set for us the bar, to literally walk the example we’re supposed to die trying to follow as best a bunch of heathens like us possibly can. And we follow His example the best we possibly can by doing all we can to emulate His unrelenting insistence upon standing on the Word of God and doing only all that God put us here to do.

Let us then lead by example by following the example we’ve been given. Not in fear or futility but rather in faith and in firmness. For this world will not let go of doubt, but that doesn’t mean we need to agree to carry the same ourselves.

No, let this world grow cold as they stop learning, stop listening. You and I are just here to point to the One who shows us all that it doesn’t have to be that way.

And that’s a calling that has nothing to do with age.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold