Devotion:
Read Ecclesiastes 7:11-12. (NRSV)
Remember the credit card commercial which adds up the cost of each item or experience, then adds a note of wisdom to declare the time spent with family as, “priceless”? It’s signature line is, “there are some things that money cannot buy...” In a way, it seems to sum up what these verses are saying.
Ecclesiastes is one of the books of wisdom literature in the Old Testament. The word, “wisdom” is listed 28 times within these twelve chapters. Wisdom is a gift which comes from God. Wisdom is more than knowledge. Wisdom is the combination of knowledge, understanding, discernment, and a sense of living ethically and faithfully unto God, others and self.
For these verses, imagine a teacher with young students having a discussion. The teacher asks, “Which is better for an inheritance, money or wisdom?” And some students might say “money” for good reasons and others might say “wisdom” for good reasons. And the teacher says to them, “You are both correct because both are good protection. But there’s one great difference, wisdom gives life to the one who possesses it.”
Wisdom is a gift which sustains us through the years. We too, become students of pondering this gift of wisdom. Perhaps we need to value it more than we do. How often do we fret and measure life’s successes by the measure of money? But wisdom teaches us that life’s riches cannot be measured in the amount of money we have accumulated. Life’s riches are in the relationship we have with God and one another. Life’s riches accumulate in what we learn from God and each other all along the way.
After a friend’s grandmother’s passing, many spiral-bound notepads were discovered full of lists. This friend said she realized the secret of her Grandmother’s joy! Her grandmother made daily lists of her blessings and gave God thanksgiving each day for all those blessings! What an inheritance! That’s the gift of wisdom’s accumulation from a life of faithfulness well-lived!
Personal Worship Option:
“I’d Rather Have Jesus”
I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold
I'd rather be His than have riches untold
I'd rather have Jesus than houses or land
I'd rather be led by His nail-pierced hand
Than to be the king of a vast domain
And be held in sin's dread sway
I'd rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today
Words written in 1922 by Rhea F. Miller, music in 1933 by George Beverly Shea
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