Lasting Solutions

Posted: April 21st, 2011 Category: Christianity, Common Sense, Political

Proverbs 8:19 “My fruit is better than fine gold; what I yield surpasses choice silver“. What am I? Consider this before you answer. Is it even possible to thrive in chaos or anger? For those who stand on shaky principles, chaos or anger might be used to try and make their point, but after that they seek the stability of peace and tranquillity, which is sought out of the resolution of trouble. If someone asked you to build a bridge over unrest, how would you begin. The first questions you might ask are, where is this unrest? What caused it and how long has it lasted? How wide, how deep and how disruptive has it been and how many people are impacted? With this basic information and a quick survey of the surroundings, you could venture a preliminary assessment of the size, cost and time involved in building the necessary bridge. Or, you could use that same information to untangle the chaos, defuse the anger and resolve the troubles, thereby entirely removing the need for a bridge over it at all. I’m not talking about diverting an angry river here, rather a process of opening emotional flood gates a little to relieve the pressure, again and again until adrenaline diminishes and the threat passes. What does it take to untangle chaos, even before compromise can be discussed? It takes understanding. Once we understand the problem, wisdom is necessary to devise, present, implement, monitor, debug and maintain a solution! That’s the long answer, the short one is that “lasting solutions” are fruit of wisdom and wisdom is more valuable than fine gold and choice silver.

Wisdom is the scarcest of natural resources. You can’t mine, discover or grow it and you certainly can’t steal it, but you might be able to earn it. The bible is filled with wisdom. The wisdom doesn’t flash in neon, but it’s there to be chipped out of the ore of history, parables, examples and challenges and then refined by the fire of trials and faith. It can be earned by surrendering to and studying the source of it. The neon (so-to-speak) is in the commandments, laws chiseled in stone. The wisdom is in the mortar between the stones. Troubles are displayed in human costs, arguing, fighting, anger and losses. No one wants to see a forest burn, but we’ll try harder to extinguish it when a bordering community is threatened. Our issues can only find lasting solutions through wisdom. God is the wellhead of wisdom. Any solution not built on God’s wisdom is doomed from the get-go. Where-ever wisdom is planted, the choicest fruit is harvested.

JC Calkins with COMMON SENSE 4 UNCOMMON PEOPLE (share comments with us spam with others)