Week 8 Two kinds of wisdom

A few weeks ago I had a little "situation" with a student and a parent. The student was saying one thing and I was saying another and the parent was upset and it was a big mess. I was so stressed out about this situation because I KNEW THAT I WAS RIGHT! And that was all I could think about, the fact that I was right and that he was wrong and how can I make this parent see my righteousness. It was after about three emails back and forth and many long conversations with my mother( as a sympathetic fellow teacher) and my husband, (the captive audience) that it hit me. My sole focus in trying to work this thing out was myself. And there's the rub.......

Read James 3:13-18

After James completes his first look at the dangers of the tongue he moves on, or I would say, builds on his argument through talking about two different kinds of wisdom. "worldly wisdom" and wisdom from heaven. Wisdom is the source we use to make decisions, both large and small in or daily lives. Some might think of it as reasoning, but we do it daily without even realizing that we are doing it. It becomes more evident of course when making bigger decisions like: how to take care of our money, or career choices, or how to be involved in ministry, but it's just as present in our daily attitudes and thoughts about smaller things like, how we spend a Friday evening, or whether or not there is time for the gym today. What I am trying to say is James 3:13-18 is actually a lesson on how to discern the will of God, and who doesn't want to take a minute to talk about that?

"Discerning God's will for your life" is one of those big Christian catch phrases we like to throw around but we don't often use it in the normal everyday living of life. You use it when you are graduating from college and you need to know what's next, or when you are assessing whether or not you are ready for the responsibility of a family. Every once in a while we will use it when trying to decide what ministry to be involved in at church. But it doesn't often get used when we are thinking about how we treat the people around us or our daily activities and how we spend our time.

When making those smaller decisions, do we consider them to be influenced at all by wisdom? The truth is they all are, the question is really what KIND of wisdom is motivating us? Let's break the two kinds down in a way that we teachers understand...

Take a second make yourself a little chart. (you thought I was going to do all the work for you...) Read through Verse 3:17 and write out the motivations of Heavenly wisdom. Now read through 3:14-15 and write out the motivations of Worldly wisdom.

Now outline the results of both kinds of wisdom. Worldly results 3:16 and 4:1-3. Heavenly results are 3:18.

Take a look are both lists.

On a daily basis how often are we motivated by the wisdom that comes from heaven? How about the latter?

When we think about the problems in our lives, how many of them are a result of following "worldly wisdom"? If we were to change our way of thinking about, look at them through the eyes of heavenly wisdom, would the situation look different?

Back to my situation with the parent. I realized that in my selfish ambition I had made the situation so much worse. If instead I had used Godly wisdom and submissively spoken to the parent admitting that I hadn't spent the time to explain what needed to be explained to their student this would never have been a problem in the first place. Also, in my selfishness I forgot that my motivation for teaching is not myself, it is actually the growth of my student, and by defending myself my student was not growing. Instead they felt uncared for and unimportant. When I stepped back and looked away from myself I saw clearly the wisdom I had used was not from heaven.

When our motivations are driven by envy and selfish ambition the result is always death. However, because there is a good work that God has planted in is there will be Godly wisdom motivating us towards deeds that are done by that wisdom and those deeds lead to, "a harvest of righteousness".

What does a harvest of righteousness look like in your life?