In the movie "Sands of Iwo Jima" John Wayne's character Sgt Stryker said, "Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid." This illustrates the benefits of being smarter, because supposedly the smarter we are the less often we make poor choices. I don't know anyone that wants to make life harder, do you? We all want life to be easier, that's not to say we are lazy, it's to say we want to avoid needless problems. Being wiser, therefore, simply makes sense.
In our information overloaded, data saturated culture, we face one of the greatest challenges in history. We have the illusion of intelligence because of all the easily accessible and available knowledge. We think we are educated and smarter because we can google any question. I love the Internet and search engines, but more information isn't enough when it comes to acting on what we know. In other words, information is necessary but information alone is insufficient to living life well.
"How" I use the information I have to make better choices is where wisdom comes into play. You knew right from wrong from an early age, but that knowledge doesn't always help prevent us from making terrible choices.
I'm starting a new sermon series titled "Ears to Hear" this coming Sunday. This new series is on wisdom, where to find it, what wisdom is, how to apply it, and benefiting from wisdom. If you are interested in gaining Biblical wisdom and would like to grow with us, plan to visit us Sunday at 10:00 a.m.
