I live next to Sanity ...

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I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next to Sanity; Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street.
The Fear-of-God means hating Evil, whose ways I hate with a passion— pride and arrogance and crooked talk.
Good counsel and common sense are my characteristics; I am both Insight and the Virtue to live it out. -Prov 8:12-15

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Wisdom works best when accompanied by the attributes that Solomon delineates in these verses. Even so, sanity is a strange word to find in a passage about wisdom. It reminds me that Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. Sometimes it takes courage to be wise. Often the wise path is the one not taken. Sometimes the sanest and wisest thing we can do is different from the things we have done.

In other places Solomon writes that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom - in this verse he takes that thought a bit further and says that fearing God means hating what God hates. And even further, it is not hating the evil in our neighbor but the evil in our self. Wisdom requires that we reject arrogant pride and embrace humility. Apart from humility we would reject the counsel, common sense, insight and virtues needed to embrace and truly walk in wisdom.

Dear Lord, give us the courage today to humbly embrace the path of wisdom by trying something different.

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