Recently we have been teaching Kami, our eldest daughter, to drive. She was driving one day and it was her first time on a high way, so we are going 100 k’s an hour. I was already tense. As things always seem to go with a learner driver driving, a problem lay ahead. Way way up in the distance I noticed car lights were going red, maybe more than a kilometer away. I started to get more tense but I waited because the key here is that Kami sees and learns. Kami drove like there was nothing wrong. Then as we got closer more and more break lights started appearing. Kami changed nothing. I got more tense, by this time Jess in the back was tense and I am pretty sure Hunter our dog who was on the long journey was even starting to get worried. I hoped she would see the impending danger but she didn’t and eventually I had to say, every so calmly, ‘…time to slow down’. She looked at me shocked. She was under the speed limit, in her lane, all looked safe; she was obeying the rules!! But it wasn’t the rules that were speaking to me, it was experience. She sort of shrugged her shoulders and stopped. Sure enough within seconds we were at a complete stop as we waited because an accident lay ahead. Hopefully Kami had learnt a lesson.
In the same way this is what wisdom is like. It isn’t just the rules, it isn’t just morals, it is more. It is many things but certainly the Spirit of God, with our own conscience joining up with our life experiences. I think we can get better about feeling out when things don’t feel right in our own lives. We can say, ‘I have been on this road before’. I think it is time to start breaking. That is wisdom!
Proverbs 4:26 says, “Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.” So, is it time to break in an area of your life? Maybe more than that. Maybe it is time to hop off that highway and head the other direction.
I spoke on this recently in our wisdom series recently if you want to hear more.
Carl Mutzelburg 