A personal walk with God comes to us through wisdom and revelation. King Tirian of Narnia has a good heart. But he also has an unwise heart–an untrained heart. I’d say that’s true for most of us. Our heart has been made good by the work of Christ, but we haven’t learnt how to live from it. Young and naive it remains. Even the most gifted musician still has to take lessons; even the bravest of warriors must be trained. We are unfamiliar, unpracticed with the ways of the heart. This is actually very dangerous part of the journey. Launching out with an untrained heart can bring much hurt and ruin, and afterward we will be shamed back into the gospel of Sin Management, having concluded that our heart is bad. The poet George Herbert warned, Go not abroad at every quest or call of an untrained hope and passion.
We need to walk by the inspiration of the Spirit, and we need wisdom as well… Early on in our journey, I think we should lean more into wisdom. It takes time to learn to walk with God in a deeply intimate way, and many challenges face us before we are accustomed to the way of the heart. We must practice our chords; we must do our drills.
For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm… Then you will understand what is right and just and fair–every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you (Prov. 1:32-33; 2:9-11)
Notice that wisdom is not cramming our heads with principles. It is developing a discerning heart… We don’t seek wisdom because it’s a good idea; we seek wisdom because we’re dead if we don’t… It’s cruel to tell someone to follow her her dreams without also warning her what hell will come against her… It’s not that the advice is bad; it is, however, woefully inadequate. That’s like a thirteen-year-old falling in love. Her motive may be lovely, but she is in for a painful fall. Will she ever love again with such abandon?
The Bible is full of such counterintuitive direction from God. Would you counsel a father to sacrifice his only child…? Certainly it wasn’t wisdom that compelled a fugitive to walk back into the country where he was wanted for a murder… Was it reasonable to take a fortified city by marching around it blowing trumpets? …and even worse to send a boy against a trained mercenary. And frankly, it looked like perfect madness for Jesus to give himself up to the authorities, let himself get killed…
Somewhere in our hearts I think we’d love to have a role like that, be used by God so dramatically. To find it, wisdom is not enough–may even hold us back from doing the will of God… The commonsense life, which as Oswald Chambers warned, can be the enemy of the supernatural life… We have our morals and we have our precepts, but where is the living God? Putting our confidence in human reason was naive… The only way out of this mess is to turn to our Guide… to learn to walk with God.
(John Eldredge, Waking the Dead)
