Own It!

You don't own it until you experience it!

Owning Wisdom

I saved this one for last because my next posting serious is entitled Raising Kids in The Age of Foolishness based on the book of Proverbs, primarily. Today’s post is the last in my OWN IT series. In the days to come the Bible will show us how to own wisdom in some very practical ways. In my view we are raising far too many fools today. Perhaps we are not strictly “raising” them. When we do not raise corn, peas, carrots, collard greens, and okra, the weeds will come up without our effort. The reason we have too many fools today is because we failed to raise our children to be wise. If we are not instilling wisdom in our children, what do we expect. Foolishness will naturally result.

Owning wisdom through experience is the essence of our OWN IT series. Experience is the key to wisdom. Parents have the job of providing learning opportunities to experience life which will result in wisdom. Parents can train their children by putting them into controlled environments for producing wisdom. Once my brother-in-law took the youth group to a parking lot near a bar. He told the kids to watch the people going in and out of the bar. They observed the behavior of the patrons. He asked them what they saw. They got some practical experience by observing the actions of others. I had a similar experience in my late teens by being the designated driver for my buddies who liked to drink after our attendance at the stock car races. What I saw did not look like fun to me. After a few drinks they all acted like fools. While they were owning foolishness, I was beginning to own wisdom. Parents would do well to use the experiences of life that occur often and naturally as opportunities to train their children. We should be asking, “What do you see?” We should do the same with the mistakes our children make. These are not merely opportunities for punishment. They are opportunities for instilling wisdom. Ask them: “What did you learn from this experience?” Every bump, scrape, loss, image, or conversation is curriculum for learning wisdom. Wisdom is not learned by merely reading a book on it. Wisdom is owned when it is experienced. YOU DON’T OWN IT UNTIL YOU EXPERIENCE IT. (See you in the next series.)