Read Psalm 119:97-104 97Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. 98Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. 99I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. 100I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. 101I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. 102I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. 103How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! 104Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.
The wisdom of God is sheer foolishness to the world. It is reserved for those who would be called child-like, babes, innocent even (Luke 10:21). David’s boast that his understanding exceeds that of his teachers and the aged is not a boast in his own intellect, but rather a boast in the wisdom of God. Like twelve year old Jesus teaching the teachers in the temple, it wasn’t THAT he knew more than them, it was WHAT he knew.
What David knew abstractly and what Jesus knew fully is what we can all know – the wisdom of Christ and his cross. The wisdom of the cross is foolishness to those who seek to gain through gaining. But it is the wisdom of God for those who embrace gain through losing. Power is weakness. First is last. Up is down. Dying is living. Does that sound nonsensical to you? It shouldn’t if you are in Christ. It is the wisdom of Christ. The way of Christ.
But first you must become child-like to embrace it. Humble. Low. Lower. Cruciform wisdom only comes through foolishness. The foolishness of self-sacrifice. The foolishness of to live is Christ.
Prayer. Jesus, you knew what very few can embrace, that as I lose my life, I find it. Keep granting me this child-like wisdom of going lower still until I find you. Amen.
To Live is Christ 