Devotional

Devotional from Tuesday June 29, 2010.

I chose a reading from the book of Job for today's devotional. The book of Job is really difficult sometimes, but I like it because it reminds us that bad things don't happen to us because we deserve them or because we are bad - bad things just happen.

Here goes:
Job 28:20-28 (New Jerusalem Bible)

But where does Wisdom come from?
Where is Intelligence to be found?

She cannot be seen by any living
she is hidden from the birds of the sky.

Perdition and Death say, ‘We have heard only rumours of her.'

God alone understands her path
and knows where she is to be found.

(For he looks to the remotest parts of the earth,
and observes all that lies under heaven.)

When he willed to give weight to the wind
and measured out the waters with a gauge,

when he imposed a law on the rain, and mapped a route for the thunderclaps to follow,

then he saw and evaluated her,
looked her through and through, assessing her.

Then he said to human beings,
Wisdom? - that is fear of the LORD;
Intelligence? - avoidance of evil.'


When we hear this passage we see that Job is trying to answer the questions, "What is Wisdom?" and "What is intelligence?"

What does it mean that God says that Wisdom is fear of the Lord? What does it mean to avoid evil? What do these really mean?

Let's start with what they don't mean. Wisdom and Intelligence in this passage are clearly not related to how most people define them today. No where does this book say that Wisdom or Intelligence is related to how many degrees you have. You don't have to have a college degree from Harvard or even a high school degree. Clearly this Wisdom is not related to how much money you earn or where you went to school. You don't have to go to UT to get this wisdom. This Wisdom and Intelligence are not something that you can buy.

What does it mean that fear of the Lord is Wisdom? Does God mean the fear of terror? I don't think so. Every time in the Bible that God sends a messenger, or a angel the very first thing they say is "Do Not Be Afraid". Clearly God does not want us to be afraid - but we are supposed to have fear of the Lord. I like to think of this fear as awe and respect and submission to God. A fear that is empowering, not paralyzing.

If Intelligence is avoidance of evil does that mean that we should just sit alone and try to act holy? Or maybe we could lock ourselves up and pray all day. I'm sure we would not encounter any evil if we did that. But I think that avoidance could be seen as actually trying to get rid of evil in this world. We can see avoidance of evil as 'doing justice' - as lessening the evil that exists.

If we are wise and intelligence we don't have to earn some fancy degree or know all the right answers or have any house or anything concrete. Instead this kind of Wisdom is a gift that God gives us so that we can learn to follow God and take risks to bring about more justice and less evil in this world. God's Wisdom and God's Intelligence are things that no one can away from us, no matter what happens in our lives. We lose our job our house our bag - no matter what we lose we can always have God's Wisdom.