Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Worth the Effort

There is always more to learn.  I love it when I read a passage and find a new insight, something so obvious that I wonder how I ever missed it before.

Reading Job 28 we find the words of Job himself, a man crushed emotionally and devastated physically, describing the material treasures of the earth and comparing them with the value of wisdom.

He describes the process of mining for silver and gold, digging and tunnelling through the rock to find treasure.  Not much has changed in the 4000 (?) years since these words were written.  We still want the treasures of the earth, and we still dig holes to get to them.

All this effort effort goes into finding treasure, Job says, but we don't work nearly as hard to get the stuff of real value.  "Man does not comprehend [wisdom's] worth," he says in v. 13.

Am I working hard enough to gain wisdom?  I need to use the right tools:  humility, listening, asking, reading, thinking and praying.

I need to do the right kind of mining.