In his book, Faith for Exiles, David Kinnaman describes our culture today with two words: accelerated and complex. He writes:
By accelerated, we mean everything moves faster: the news cycles, the speed of information, the pace of life, the rate of change. This is the screen age, after all. Digital tools, devices, and content drive our perceptions and experiences of reality. They offer an illusion of total control and a mirage of complete access to the world…
By complex, we refer to the fact that everyday life feels increasingly complicated and uncertain. It is difficult to predict the relationship between cause and effect, to understand what outcomes (intended and unintended) will result from a given course of action, or even to get a complete picture of all the variables involved.
Do these descriptors (and descriptions) resonate with you?
As someone who came of age in the 2000’s they resonate with me. As someone who also works with teens today, they hit the nail on the head.
A lot has changed in the last 30 years. With the emergence of the internet, social media, and smartphones the landscape of human experience really has changed. Yet, it’s not just digital technologies that have changed our world. We inhabit a post-9/11, post-Obergefell, post-Caitlin Jenner, post-#MeToo, post-George Floyd, post-Covid world where change and uncertainty rule the day. The foundations have shifted, or at least it seems so.
But can I tell you one thing that hasn’t changed? The desire to find life at its best. To live the so-called “good life”. People of all ages still ache to find a life worth living. Every one of us is searching for a way to navigate the inevitable challenges and sufferings that life brings our way, along with the victories and joys. The question is in our accelerated and complex world, where can we look to find life at its best?
In our accelerated and complex world, where can we look to find life at its best?
Kinnaman offers more of a diagnosis than an answer when he writes:
Many of us today turn to our devices to help us make sense of the world. Young people, especially, use the screen in their pockets as counselors, entertainers, instructors, even sex educators…
Google searches are wonderful benefits, mostly, of life in the modern world. Who hasn’t found their life improved by access to the right information at the right time? Watch a step-by-step tutorial on repairing your dishwasher. Listen to your favorite song. Discover a new recipe. Shop for your friend’s birthday gift right now, before you forget…
The virtual possibilities are virtually endless.
Do you hear the subtext of Kinnaman’s diagnosis? We have more information at our fingertips than ever before, yet this hasn’t brought us life at its best. The possibilities may be endless. But that’s just it, we still haven’t found what we’re looking for.
Why is this so? Because more information isn’t the same thing as more wisdom. Having more information doesn’t mean we know how to use that information in a meaningful way. If you drop your phone and it breaks into a hundred pieces, you could probably find a list online (since phones don’t come with user manuals!) of every piece. But knowing all the pieces is not the same as the understanding and ability to put them all back together.
Similarly, gobbling up the latest study or catching up on the newest trend often has a way of leaving us hanging. Have you ever spent an hour online then wondered, “Was this truly helpful to living well?” The reality is we don’t need more information, we need more wisdom. Because wisdom will bring us life at its best.
Perhaps it’s no surprise this is precisely where Scripture points us.
Proverbs and the imagination
If you’re at all familiar with the Bible, you probably know the book of Proverbs is a book of wisdom. It’s best known for its short, memorable statements that capture individual nuggets of wisdom that we call “proverbs”. In fact, much of the book of Proverbs is full of statements such as these:
A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. (10:4)
A soft answers turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (15:1)
What you might not realize about Proverbs, though, is besides giving us memorable words of wisdom to live by, it also gives us a vision of the good life in God’s world. In other words, Proverbs doesn’t merely engage our memory, it engages our imagination.
The purpose of Proverbs isn’t merely to provide you a list of wise sayings to memorize, it’s to form you into a person who lives well in the world God has made. Therefore, Proverbs engages our imagination to understand the way God has designed and ordered his creation, so that we can align ourselves with the way he intends us to live. As the Maker of all things, God can tell us how things function best – and that’s what wisdom is: learning to live life at its best, or you might say, as God intended.
Think of Proverbs not just as a list, but a compass, or maybe better, a travel guide. Like a compass it orients you, “This way is good. This way is bad. That way is really bad.” Like a travel guide, it lets you know where the righteous mountains and unrighteous valleys are, helps you recognize the pathways of the good and the highways of evil, and understand how to get from point A to point B without falling into a ditch, or making a mess of life.
Woman Wisdom
One of the primary ways Proverbs engages our imagination is by introducing us to Woman Wisdom. (In fact, we also meet Woman Folly (9:13-18), The Adulteress (7:1-27), and The Excellent Wife (31:10-31). But those are for another time.)
Now, this Woman named Wisdom is not a flesh and blood woman. She’s not a literal woman in history. Instead, she’s a literary woman – a metaphorical woman, if you will, but that doesn’t mean she’s any less real. Woman Wisdom is a personified version of God’s own wisdom.
Proverbs 8 is an extended speech given by Woman Wisdom, appealing to the us, the readers, to listen to her, to know her, to choose her, to “find” her. Because, she claims, doing so will result in us experiencing life at its best.
We won’t look at the whole speech here. Suffice it to say, she opens with her call (8:1-6), then speaks to her character (8:7-21) and credibility (8:22-31). But hear her closing charge in verses 32-36:
And now, O sons, listen to me:
blessed are those who keep my ways.
Hear instruction and be wise,
and do not neglect it.
Blessed is the one who listens to me,
watching daily at my gates,
waiting beside my doors.
For whoever finds me finds life
and obtains favor from the Lord,
but he who fails to find me injures himself;
all who hate me love death.
Did you catch that? “Whoever finds me,” Wisdom says, “finds life!” And thus, to fail to find her is to injure oneself. In other words, life at its best is found when you find Woman Wisdom! Wisdom is the key to unlocking our search for life to the full – a life of meaning and purpose, understanding and success. Wisdom will help us navigate our accelerated and complex world. For God’s wisdom is not outdone by the pace or whims of culture.
Jesus, the wisdom of God
However, the biblical story and the biblical imagination doesn’t end there. We don’t merely need God’s wisdom, even if it is personified as a lovely Lady. You see, God’s wisdom takes another form in the biblical story, a human form. Not just personified, but a person. Jesus, the wisdom of God, is the one we need.
Jesus is often associated with God’s wisdom in the New Testament (e.g. 1 Cor. 1:18-2:16; Col. 2:2-3). In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is presented not only as the King giving his law, as it were, but as the Sage giving his wisdom. Contrary to the wisdom of this age, Jesus’ “beatitudes” are the upside-down wisdom of his kingdom. Just as God built the world by his wisdom (Prov. 3:19-20), so should we, Jesus tells us, build our lives on his words (Matt. 7:23-27).
And here’s the kicker: as God’s wisdom, Jesus came to bring life. Jesus taught that in him we can find life “to the full”, life at its best. Listen to his words in John 10:10,
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Life to the full. That’s what Jesus offers. And therefore, our ability to navigate our accelerated and complex world will only be to the degree to which we get to know a person, namely, Jesus.
Our ability to navigate our accelerated and complex world will only be to the degree to which we get to know a person, namely, Jesus.
Will you seek him? He promises to be found. Will you find him? In Jesus, you will find the life that your heart yearns for.
Discerning satisfaction, it's a good life.
Thanks Jon