Fall 2001
Attaining to Wisdom
Penny Smith

“If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will discern the fear of the LORD, and discover the
knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; and from His
mouth come knowledge and understanding.” Proverbs 2:4-6 NAS.

This verse can be paraphrased, “If you seek wisdom as silver, and search for wisdom as for hidden treasures, then you shall understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.”

We are given two choices, or alternatives:
(1) to settle on our lees, satisfied with what we have,
(2) or dig for the hidden things of God

To “settle in” is to get stuck in the mud of our past experiences, or worse, someone else's experience. When a vehicle is immovable in mud, it takes great effort to loosen and free the wheels. To sit and think about our being stuck will accomplish nothing, but if we apply effort, we will begin to move again. We may push and dig (effort); but a tow truck can easily release the vehicle with a pull.

We cannot “earn” the Lord's choice truths by our efforts, but we can prove to Him that we really do want to know Him. The Lord will respond to this attitude of heart, and as this tow truck, will “pull” us up into the expanse of new pathways and vistas of experiential knowledge. Therefore, if we are stuck, but truly desire a deeper relationship with the Lord, He will guide us into it, as we make known to Him the intent of our hearts.

To dig for the hidden treasures in God means that we are making ourselves available, not just for the gathering of factual information, but to come into the understanding of His ways, which is borne out of our times of communion with Him. We come to personally know the Lord - His thoughts and feelings, as we fellowship with Him, and cooperate with His ways.

His manifested Presence, which evokes emotional responses in us, now leads us to a realization of His responses. In other words, as we respond to Him, He in turn responds to us and will take us further.