“Get wisdom” is a phrase that has been echoing through my mind lately. Not knowledge. Not intellect. Not opinions. Just wisdom.
By definition, wisdom is:
“The soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment.”
I’ve accumulated so much knowledge. I’ve filled my mind with facts, theories, philosophies, religious frameworks, and countless opinions. I’ve wrestled with them, debated them, absorbed them. But despite all that, deep within me, I feel the missing piece is wisdom.
Knowledge by itself doesn’t seem to answer the questions beneath the surface. There’s something hidden, something deeper that only wisdom seems to hold. In the hidden meanings, purpose behind life, scenario matrix, issues we face — the answers seem to hinge on wisdom. Without it, answers feel incomplete, shallow, or like half-truths that crumble when life presses too hard.
But what framework does wisdom fit in? It’s not law. It’s not ethics. Because study of right and wrong can only get you so far. It’s not humanism. Because, surely, humans are imperfect. All of these are flawed, and if you dig deep enough, the structure won’t hold given time and circumstances.
I keep coming back to this line from the Bible:
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
Why is that? Why would the fear of God be the beginning of wisdom?
In a world full of complex opinions, life experiences, and philosophies — why would the most sound judgment start there?
Maybe because wisdom demands a recognition that we don’t know it all. It starts with understanding that we are not the source of all truth. That we are limited, flawed, and that something greater, something beyond us, must anchor our search for meaning and rightness.
When I sit with that thought, it doesn’t feel like a cop-out. It feels like a grounding, a steadying force that pulls me out of the chaos of my own mind. Wisdom, begins with surrender — with acknowledging a higher order, a higher way of seeing things than just my own small, small, small perspective. Did I say small?
I want wisdom. Actually, I need wisdom.
Not because I think it will give me all the answers or erase my struggles, but because it might help me see my circumstances through a lens that is more enduring, more steady.
Right now, I have plenty of unresolved tension. Places where I’m hurting. Places where I’m limping through life. But if I’m asking for one thing, it’s not more knowledge. Not even more clarity or certainty.
It’s wisdom.
This is excellent, Gloria. What you've written IS wisdom, couched in humility. Love you.
That verse: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom verse is the first thing I thought as I saw your title. I stumbled on that verse about two years ago for the first time. Maybe I’ve heard / read it countless of times but I let it pass by all these years.