Does not wisdom cry out,
And understanding lift up her voice?
She takes her stand on the top of the high hill,
Beside the way, where the paths meet.
She cries out by the gates, at the entry of the city,
At the entrance of the doors:
“To you, O men, I call,
And my voice is to the sons of men.
O you simple ones, understand prudence,
And you fools, be of an understanding heart.
Listen, for I will speak of excellent things,
And from the opening of my lips will come right things;
For my mouth will speak truth;
Wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are with righteousness;
Nothing crooked or perverse is in them.
They are all plain to him who understands,
And right to those who find knowledge.
Receive my instruction, and not silver,
And knowledge rather than choice gold;
For wisdom is better than rubies,
And all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her.
Proverbs 8:1-11 (NKJV).
Let's first take note of the difference in where and when we come across wisdom versus the immoral woman. The immoral woman was out at night, in a specific location, and making empty promises about how the illicit behavior she was offering would be without consequence. Wisdom, on the other hand, is on top of a hill, at every door, at every crossroads, apparently everywhere.
Yet like how "common sense" is not actually common at all, it's this availability that causes the arrogant, the prideful, to take wisdom for granted in pursuit of the work of their own hands, even if that work leads only to destruction. If wisdom is so available, so common, then why would one need to invest in a relationship with "her"?
The fool believes that their efforts have drawn the attention of the immoral woman, that her scarcity and exclusivity (roll your eyes here) speaks to a value that the more commonly available "wisdom" cannot claim. The immoral woman may even include such flattery in her seduction, all the while wisdom is trying to compete, but people are only annoyed by the persistence.
When a child, there was a neighbor kid who wanted to play on a regular basis, every day. This got annoying, because the commonality of the availability ruined the "feeling" of our time spent together being rare or valuable. Scarcity so often determines value, with dirt being nearly worthless, but fine jewels and refined precious metals, being both more rare and more attractive, are granted higher value, are cherished more, and thus why Solomon tries so hard on a regular basis to challenge this default valuation of wisdom.
The book of Proverbs is constantly trying to challenge the default means by which people derive value, to overturn a valuation based on relative temporal scarcity, and to instead try to teach people to value something which is essentially not scarce at all, but is yet of considerable benefit to them. To learn that what we value does not reflect what God values, and that gets to the heart of the issue.
Valuing what God values requires humility, and you're not going to be humble if you are convinced in your own ability, of your own understanding, of your own strength. It's the same foolishness that has the "youth" denying wisdom in pursuit of "guilt-free" pleasure, drinking deep from the lies of the immoral woman, and believing that whatever comes of it, it's "worth the risk". Even if you are not placing yourself on God's throne, you're still trying to "make it" by your own hand, even when an infinite wellspring of assistance is being offered that you could gain access to at any time.
This is the folly of humanity, our solipsism, that we want to think that we know best, that we understand more than enough, that we don't need to grow, to learn.
Yet like the air that we breathe, that we take for granted, it's not when we have it that we appreciate it, but when we don't anymore that we start to realize the value on our own. It's when we're trying to escape from a fire and cannot but breathe smoke and ash that we are forced to understand the value of clean air. It's not till we're parched and dry that we are forced to pay attention to the value in good water.
Time and again humanity takes something for granted, and we do not choose to value it until it's been taken away from us and we then have no choice but to do so. We're forced because we didn't choose well and the consequence of poor choices results in bad circumstances.
If you're allergic to a food and you eat it, is the problem the allergy or your having eaten the food anyway?
If you need to sustain fidelity in your marriage, do you really want to have it broken apart before you can appreciate what you already have?
The arrogance implicit behind the mentality of "I am going to do what I think is right, no matter what" wreaks all sorts of havoc on both your life and the lives of those around you, and yet the most controversial aspect of all of this, the most contentious claim that could be made, is that it's all unnecessary.
You see, it's not that we can't learn at all, but it's the subtle insistence that we can't learn unless we've made the mistakes ourselves, that unless we've got the scars and felt the pain, that we're entirely incapable of behaving any other way. Paradoxically this is a thought process often tethered to the idea that, realizing this, one has achieved some state of enlightenment, as opposed to the reality of just resigning one's agency to succumb to the instincts and emotions that toss us to and fro.
Realize that, in denying that we can ever learn without failure, we are not really being honest about our own shortcomings, we're simply declaring that we are the center of the universe until proven otherwise.
This is why Solomon tries so hard, so often, to break that mindset, to provide a new framework for value, because the costs for failure are often greater than we can imagine. Material gain and sexual satisfaction are themes familiar with everyone, everyone can understand them, so they are referred back to frequently because of this, not because they're the only circumstances where this type of dynamic plays out, but because the consequences of failure in pursuit of these things is so readily apparent to even the bystander.
Wisdom is available to all, but many will reject it, and they will suffer for it. In some ways, wisdom as Solomon describes it is a foreshadowing of the salvation that Christ would afford for all of us now. It is a gift, given not because of who we are, and so because people did not work for it themselves, because they did not earn it through their own efforts, they'll foolishly reject it, thinking they can do better on their own.
Do not be that person. Surrender your pride, your trust in only what you can secure with your own hands, and instead accept the embrace, the words, of wisdom and thus walk an upright path, never envying the damage that others have wrought upon themselves to learn the very same lessons.
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