Fact is, wisdom is granted not gathered

There was a time, years (and years and years) ago, amidst the reading of Marvel Comics, that I read books...Hardy Brothers, the occasional Nancy Drew and another boy named Leroy Brown, nicknamed "Encyclopedia" for his intelligence and for all the stuff he knew how to do that most kids simply wouldn't.

I was impressed that apparently reading and retaining encyclopedic (what big words you have Grandma said Red to the wolf) amounts of facts could help one solve crimes.

When my mother bought me a set of  Britannica encyclopedias, there I went.

The idea at the time was buy the complete set, and year after year there would be a yearly update book sent right to your home. I'm aware of what I'm about to say being I guess a bit wacky, but I was fascinated by them. I poured over them. Seems in my distant memory I read them every day, or night as it were. Poured over pictures. Reflected on the facts (in alphabetical order in fact).

At one point, I was fairly certain that mysteries were arising around the house and the woods and pastures that surrounded the house. Holes that shouldn't be there were created most often by aliens (or cows). And on and on. I swam in the imagination of the knowledgeable creative mind.

I graduated to the public Library in Meridian, Miss. I was particular fond of modern day mysteries, true mysteries. Judge Crater, I remember, fascinated me. How one could just disappear, never to be seen again, was wild. True crime, the anti-heroe crime bosses of the 1930s in another book I remember. And always, it seemed, they were caught by people with more knowledge than the bad guys, like Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd and such, had.

Today, as wacky as it seems, I'm a big fan of Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia. Many's the time when I have no book, magazine, newspaper to read, I crank up Wikipedia on the I-pad. When I'm watching a television show, I often look up an actor or explore the making of the show. I'm fascinated in reading about how something came to be, what little bit of information caused this little reaction which led to JJ Abrams coming on to a program that would be called Lost at a late date. That kind of stuff.

I guess in the long run then, it wouldn't be wrong to say I'm a fan of knowledge, of facts, of stuffing all the trivial or trivia into my brain that I can.

In doing so, it's come to my attention how far knowledge is from wisdom. I'm full to the hairless head with facts. My wisdom is lagging like a tired, thirsty puppy on a long summer walk with his master.

The Bible, of course, speaks of the wisdom of Solomon. From the Message, his bio -- as it were -- reads, "God gave Solomon wisdom—the deepest of understanding and the largest of hearts. There was nothing beyond him, nothing he couldn’t handle."

I love the way that first part reads: God gave Solomon wisdom -- the deepest of understanding and the largest of hearts.

Understanding (the mind) and passion (the heart).

Clinically, the difference in the two lies in the definitions. Knowledge is information of which someone is aware. Knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject, potentially with the ability to use it for a specific purpose. Wisdom is is the ability to make correct judgments and decisions. It is an intangible quality gained presumably through experience.

Proverbs tells us more. The Bible says God is responsible for the wisdom allocated to us.
We read, "by wisdom the Lord laid the earth's foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place; by his knowledge the deeps were divided.: And "by wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures."

And Paul wrote, "It is easy to think that we know over problems like this, but we should remember that while this knowing may make a man look big, it is only love that can make him grow to his full stature. For if a man thinks he "knows" he may still be quite ignorant of what he ought to know.

Seems to me, (wisdom trying to work) that we can be filled with a great amount of knowledge, and fail the world around us miserably. I can know how to shoot a gun, but I must have the wisdom not to.

Furthermore, it seems to me (wisdom working in the cracks) that the gun we hold as Christians is the Gospel. We know what the Gospel is. The question is, the question has always been, what do we do with that knowledge, how do we do what we do with that knowledge and what is holding us back?

The answers like with God, I believe, who answers us."If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."

I know I should ask for wisdom more; I'm wise enough to know I need him. Encyclopedia's won't help me there.