"Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.
For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it."
Proverbs 8:10-11
This is a good reminder. Silver, gold, rubies... shiny, but not as important as learning knowledge and wisdom. Who we are inside matters more than what we have. Sometimes it is hard to keep that in mind. We want the giant TV and the nice roof over our heads and to not worry about bills and surviving from month to month. And that makes sense on one level because we all have immediate needs. But when we focus on short-term needs and desires, sometimes we make really poor decisions that will affect us in the long term. We might give up opportunities for education, or ruin a relationship, or get caught up in a habit or addiction that can harm us a lot.
Wisdom is that idea of being able to think long term... to balance what we need now with what we are going to need later. To include all of the factors that we need to consider rather than just the desperate now-now-now thinking that we get trapped in too often. It is the ability to step back and consider the future, and make better choices. And truthfully, if we think about it, when we choose the rubies, we usually just spend them really fast and wonder where it all went, right?
Today, let's work on remembering as much as we can that eternal things are more important than temporary earthly things... and let's set aside time to focus on learning about the things of God, and of this earth, and gaining the wisdom to use all of that knowledge wisely. As we know from James 1:5, God is pretty cool about blessing us with wisdom, if we ask for it. Let's work on that, and try to worry less about the rubies. :)
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