Part I: What Wisdom is Not

The Following is an excerpt from J.I. Packer's book "Knowing God."

What Wisdom is Not
But what sort of thing is God's gift of wisdom? What effect does it have on a person? Here many go wrong. We can make clear the nature of their mistake by an illustration.

If you stand at the end of a platform at York Station, you can watch a constant succession of engine and train movements which, if you are a railway enthusiast, will greatly fascinate you. But you will only be able to form a very rough and general idea of the overall plan in terms of which all these movements are being determined.

If, however, you are privileged enough to be taken by one of the higher-ups into the magnificent electrical signal box that lies athwart platforms 7 and 8, you will see on the longest wall a diagram of the entire track layout for five miles on either side of the station, with little glowing worm lights moving or stationary on the different tracks to show the signalmen at a glance where every engine and train is. At once you will be able to look at the whole situation through the eyes of those who control it: you will see from the diagram why it was that this train had to be signaled to a halt, and that one diverted from its normal running line, and that one parked temporarily in a siding. The why and the wherefore of all these movements becomes plain once you can see the overall position.

Now, the mistake that is commonly made is to suppose that this is an illustration of what God does when he bestows wisdom: to suppose, in other words, that the gift of wisdom consists in a deepened insight into the providential meaning and purpose of events going on around us, an ability to see why God has done what he has done in a particular case, and what he is going to do next. People feel that if they were really walking close to God, so that he could impart wisdom to them freely, then they would, so to speak, find themselves in the signal-box; they would discern the real purpose of everything that happened to them and it would be clear to them every moment how God was making all things work together for the good. Such people spend much time poring over the book of providence, wondering why God should have allowed this or that to take place, whether they should take it as a sign to stop doing one thing and start doing another, or what they should deduce from it. If they end up baffled, they put it down to their own lack of spirituality.

Christians suffering from depression, physical, mental or spiritual may drive themselves almost crazy with this kind of futile inquiry. For it is futile. Make no mistake about that.

I definitely found myself relating to the illustration above. Too often I think that I am specially privileged by God to make sense of His plan. This is extreme pride on my part and this type of thought process must be mortified quickly.

Tomorrow I will post what Dr. Packer has to say about what wisdom is.

-Kyle-