Job CCLXXVIII

 Job 28:13-19, “Man does not know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living. The deep says, ‘It is not in me’, and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ It cannot be purchased for gold, nor can silver be weighed for its price. It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. Neither gold nor crystal can equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewelry of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or quartz, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.”

If men knew the value of wisdom, it would become their lifelong, singular pursuit. Nothing else would have equal prominence in their life; there would be no shiny thing to distract them from seeking it out, and as Job said, there is no place you can find it but in God. It’s neither in the land of the living, the deep, or the sea, and though men might search for it in these places, they will come up short, empty-handed, no matter how diligent they are in their quest.

If one does not understand the value of wisdom, they will never take the time, make the effort, or dedicate themselves to pursuing it. Understanding the value of wisdom is where it all begins. In the rare moments I have some free time, I enjoy going to estate sales. If you don’t know what an estate sale is, it’s usually the offspring of the recently deceased homeowner selling all their earthly possessions just to be rid of them. More often than not, the only real value they see in what their parents left behind is the home itself, treating the contents as little more than worthless baubles they need to clear out before they sell the home.

I was walking through one such home, late in the day, after countless others had gone through it, when I noticed a statue on a side table. For some reason, it caught my eye, and when I went to pick it up, it had weight to it, so much so that I knew it wasn’t plastic or anything of the sort but likely a bronze sculpture. Upon inspecting it more thoroughly, I also saw a signature on the back, hard to make out, but there nonetheless, and after a few more minutes of walking through the home, I asked the lady sitting behind the plastic table, hunching over her money drawer, how much she wanted for the statue.

“Ten dollars?” Her answer was in the form of a question, but not being one to haggle when I see no need for it, I pulled two five-dollar bills from my pocket and handed them to her.

I got home later that day, found the magnifying glass my girls had been trying to use to light a fire when the sun was out, and made out the signature on the back of the sculpture. It turned out to be a well-known sculptor whose creations regularly sold for low four-digit prices on the open market.

Others had passed by it and saw no value in it. Even though I did not know the details, I perceived value and was willing to pay $10 to find out if I was right. Some people see no value in a relationship with God and pass Him by. Others understand that His presence in their lives is priceless and are willing to pursue Him in lieu of the other things vying for their time. The beauty of it all is that if you seek Him, you will find Him, and in Him you will discover wisdom untold.        

True wisdom stems from intimacy, fellowship, and a relationship with God. There is no place where wisdom can be purchased, no matter how much one is willing to spend. There are no kiosks selling wisdom, there’s no online retailer you can order some from, and you won’t find someone on the street corner selling wisdom in transparent baggies. Wisdom is knowledge, experience, and good judgment all rolled up into one, and it’s not something that can be delegated, subcontracted, or farmed out to a third party.

You can’t hire a virtual assistant to make you wiser, nor can you employ someone to increase your level of wisdom. Job made this clear, yet we’re still, to this day, buying courses, going to conventions, and finding gurus who insist they can impart the wisdom of the ages for a small handling fee to one and all, for as long as seats are still available.

The truly remarkable thing is that the more we grow in wisdom, the more we acknowledge our own limitations and how little we know. A wise man will not boast of his wisdom, nor will the first thing he does once it is acquired be to try to monetize it somehow.

Anyone trying to sell you wisdom doesn’t have it to sell. What they’re selling you is a fake, a forgery, whether that entails instructing you to transcendentally meditate, open your third eye, dabble with Spiritism, or a glut of other forms of foolishness that they’ll attempt to push on you in lieu of reading the Word of God, and sitting with it, allowing it to take root, and treating it not as mere words on a page but food for your soul.

The sea knows its place, the deep knows its place, even the land of the living knows, and cannot feign wisdom when they know it does not reside with them. They do, however, know with whom wisdom resides, and every flower, every forest, every creature great and small, all things above the earth and beneath it, point to God. It’s not subtle. No one has to guess at it, no one has to wonder, because His invisible attributes are clearly seen and understood by the things that are made.

If man is too blind to see the evidence of God’s design, creation, and active participation in His creation, it is because he chooses to be so. It is because he does not want to deal with the implications of acknowledging God in all His glory, and what that would mean insofar as having to humble himself and submit to His will. Many would rather remain blind to the truth than see the light of His glory because it would compel a choice: either follow Him, or reject Him, obey Him, or be in rebellion against His commands.

As long as they don’t stand at that crossroads, as long as they don’t make the conscious choice to go to the left or to the right, God becomes a version of Schrodinger’s cat, wherein as long as it's still in the box it’s both alive and dead. As long as man delays wrestling with the reality of God, he can convince himself that God both is and isn’t real. It’s a disingenuous and cowardly position to be sure, but bravery nowadays is in short supply, and honesty even at the risk of having one’s reality shattered into a million pieces is rarer than a poor politician.

Either God exists, or He doesn’t. To insist that there is the possibility of a higher power existing somewhere in the cosmos is akin to being lukewarm. If one believes that God is real, present, and knowable, they are likened to being hot. If one does not believe, he is cold. If one, however, is content with being indifferent toward the answer to the most important question of one’s entire existence, then they are by all accounts deemed worthy of being pitied by great and small alike.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.