“Wisdom is the distillation of experience. If we invite God into our experience, it becomes concentrated and focused in a way that is true and easy to understand. . . . It is the process of years yielded to God, to His understanding, to His ways that births wisdom.”- Dick Foth
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”- Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV)
In Chapter 16 (“Success is Succession”) of A Trip around the Sun, Dick Foth underscores one thing that gets stronger with age: perspective. Because, Dick observes, wisdom rides on the heels of those with much life experience. For if wisdom simply resulted from the accumulation of knowledge, everyone would be wise. In addition, today information overwhelms us. Yet, we’re dying for wisdom.
Above all, the process of years yielded to God, His understanding, and His ways births wisdom. So as you age, Dick encourages, become more real.
In the children’s classic The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Willams explored the concept of real, as espoused by the Skin Horse. Margery wrote:
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender. . . . “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s not a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time. . . . Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.”
In conclusion, Dick counsels, let life make you real. Each year you live, get to know a little more about:
- life.
- yourself and the people you love.
- God.
Jesus, more than any other person, helps you embrace the new. Furthermore, see your trips around the sun in terms of enrichment and ongoing renewal. Of deeper exploration and a broader reach.
Today’s question: How do you see wisdom as the distillation of experience? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: Success is succession”