S196P6 – Growth spurts: wisdom

Jam. 1:5

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

I have known many people who have worked in nursing, and I tend to ask them the same questions.  I ask them things like the reason they chose to go into healthcare and how difficult they think the subject matter is to learn.  Being someone who never had a gift for the sciences, I am interested in how these people are able to grasp medical and biological concepts and do it with relative ease.  One thing I have heard from every nurse I have asked is that their entrance exam is very difficult.  My friend’s sister explained to me that the exam mutates as you answer questions.  What she meant was that the questions change based on the areas in which the candidate is proficient.  The exam grows more and more challenging as it identifies the candidate’s areas of weakness and begins to focus on them instead.

We go through the same thing spiritually as we gain wisdom from God.  The enemy’s attacks may start off rather sophomoric and simple until we catch on and learn how to respond to those specific tactics.  As we grow in wisdom and learn his methods, he changes them up.  The battles we might have won easily all of a sudden begin to get difficult again.  What we need in order to continue with our victory is to gain more and more wisdom.  We have a Father in heaven who wants us to be victorious in every battle we wage on his behalf, and He gives wisdom liberally to those who request it.  What we must remember is that we never can be wise enough.  The shrewdness we are required to have must be practiced and developed because our enemy continually seeks new and different ways to trap us.

Wisdom can be defined as the application of knowledge.  As we grow in our spiritual knowledge, it only makes sense that we then must grow in our spiritual wisdom.  The more we learn, the more we must learn to apply.  God never gives us knowledge just for the sake of having it.  There always is a purpose behind learning what He teaches us.  If not for the application of our knowledge and experience, it would be a waste.  As we learn more of God and more of the enemy, and as we experience more of these different kinds of battles, we should be growing in our wisdom.  Father, we praise You for giving us your wisdom liberally and without measure if only we have the humility to ask.