Why should fools have a price in hand
to buy wisdom, when they have no mind to learn? (18:16)
Those words struck me today as I read. In a society where pretty much anything can be packaged, sold and bought, wisdom doesn’t have a price-tag. I know myself that I feel the temptation always to have more resources, more books, the latest app that will help me to pray, organise my time, read more…
I read voraciously, and one of my key temptations is to get distracted by news sites or blogs with good writing, taking in ever more words and ideas but not really learning from them. I keep resolving to make more effort to think about what I read, and to link it up to other areas of what I know and believe. I keep having good intentions of trying to learn at least one thing from a book that can change how I do something, or challenge how I think about something. But there are always so many more things to be read, so many more ideas, so much more to be done… But I know that I have already read more in my lifetime than most people in history have ever had the opportunity to do. I have resources and tools available to me already which would have been beyond the dreams of all but a few scholars not long ago. What I need is a mind to learn.
So (once again) I resolve to think, to reflect, to analyse and apply – in short, to learn.
Perhaps wisdom does have a price-tag. But it’s one of time, experience and humility. That’s a bit expensive. But it’s probably worth it.
Nick Watson 