Proverbs 17:16
Do you ever get the feeling that some people
will never learn a particular lesson? It seems as if they fall into the same
stupidity again and again. They think they can have “just one drink” and leave
the party. They think they can go to an All You Can Eat buffet and count their
calories. They think they can “just check Facebook” without spending hours in a
unproductive quest.
Our
proverb today lays out one example of this dilemma. Wisdom only benefits those
who understand it and apply it. Fools, by definition, are those who do not
value wisdom. In fact, they are unable to understand it. It is a foreign
language to them. It is like playing the most beautiful music to someone who is
deaf, or showing the most beautiful artwork to someone who is blind. The fool
doesn’t have the capacity to appreciate the wisdom.
I
have gained a new appreciation for clouds lately. They are unbelievably
beautiful. The intricacies can never be captured by any means. Even the best
artists fail to do them justice. And they are ever changing. And the seasons
seem to bring whole new varieties of clouds, each season having its own pallet
of changes. Height and depth, layering, color variation, puffiness,
juxtapositions, arrays. It seems endless. But some people just walk under the
same clouds that I do and never look up to appreciate them. And if they did
they would not see anything unusual. I bet a blind person would love to
experience just one glimpse of a cloud!
What
I find interesting is that to make a point our proverb presents wisdom as
something that can be purchased. Wisdom can’t be purchased! The point being
that wisdom is totally wasted on fools.
We
as a nation think we can spend three trillion dollars and only take in a little
over two trillion dollars in income. At least the powerful in Washington think
this. The math just doesn’t add up, and yet year after year they continue to
spend more than what comes in. They are stealing from our grand children and
great grand children. No matter how many years we do this, the math will still
never add up. And yet they keep pushing the same stupidity.
Wisdom
is wasted on some people!