A Biblical Call to Pursuing Godly Wisdom

I got back to reading When I Don't Desire God by John Piper today, after feeling the urge to read some good book after reading a post by Albert Mohler, who is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (with such famous students as Uche Anizor, Chris Shipley, and the recently graduated Arvind Balaram). His post was basically responses to questions about reading. It is a great post, and if you want to read it click here.

Anyways, I found this chapter I read today very helpful. It was practical advice about "How to Wield the Word in the Fight for Joy". I was struck by many things, but this stood out as something that needs to be trumpeted to our generation:

I have the profound sense that many people who complain of not being able to
rejoice in God treat the knowledge of God as something that ought to be easy to
get. They are passive. They expect spiritual things to happen to them from out
of nowhere. They don’t grasp the pattern of the Bible expressed in Proverbs
2:1-6:

"If you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with
you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to
understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for
understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden
treasures, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge
of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and
understanding."

Look at all those aggressive words: “receive . . . treasure up . . . make your ear attentive . . . incline your heart . . . call out . . . raise your voice . . . seek . . . search”—if you do these, then knowledge of God will be yours. Not because you can make it happen. The giving of the knowledge is still in the hands of God: “For the LORD gives wisdom.” No, the pursuit of the knowledge of God is not because you can make it happen, but because God freely chooses to bless seeking with finding. The pattern is seen in 2 Timothy 2:7 where Paul says, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” You think. The Lord gives. Our thinking does
not replace his giving. And his giving does not replace our thinking.

I think we have a tendancy to be passive in our pursuit of God. We are used to being spoon-fed spiritual truths at church in Sunday, through a well packaged sermon (or maybe even a video...). But this passage from Proverbs states that we need to "seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasures". If our only pursuit of the knowledge of God comes from a sermon on Sunday, and maybe the odd scripture reading and a 5 minute devotional, then we have failed the scriptural call to pursuing Godly wisdom. I count myself as an offender.

I hope that I can turn the corner in my own walk. One of the ways I want to do this is by memorizing Scripture. I will begin by doing a verse a day until I have memorized Romans 8. I hope that through this I can see and love and worship God in fresh and life changing ways, as well as be an encourgement to others to "lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely" and pursue Christ with all we have!