Wisdom Looking Back

Wisdom helps us discover a reflective life 

The right words are not always appropriate. Ecclesiastes 3 indicates "a time for every matter under heaven... a time to keep silence and a time to speak." In John's Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples,  "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." There are some things we're incapable of understanding when we first hear them. Our life experience may be so thin, or we may be so preoccupied, that we don't know hard-won wisdom when we see it. 

Which brings me to the wisdom of my Mother, who often advised me, "Don't take yourself so seriously." That advice was not easy to hear when I was younger and taking on life-changing responsibilities: finishing education while pastoring a church, becoming a husband and parent, caring for elders, growing as a minister, buying and maintaining a house, etc.! 

Through God's gift of memory, I can now appreciate the counsel to be less solemn and serious. It's taken years, but I'm  learning that, since many things are out of my control (that includes the choices of others!), I can focus on what is in my power to do, here and now. And, I can occasionally smile. 

Just when we need it, we can really benefit from the wisdom that's been there all along. Someone spoke it into our lives at one time and it's there for the taking, all these years later.