Day 047: Spiritual Wisdom

"Let no one deceive himself.  If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.  For it is written 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness'."                          1 Corinthians 3:18-19

How can this be?  Don't we want to have the best thinkers in the Church?

That's kind of my first reaction to this advice and to the quoted text.  We have enough trouble these days with people misleading masses of people because of their lack of discernment and knowledge and wisdom.  At the same time, some of the theologians that I respect the most, from ancient to modern times, were wise in both Scripture and philosophy.

However, the beginning of this advice gives the whole message away.  One can consider himself to be wise if he truly wants to.  Eventually, there will be someone out there who will believe him.  In the same way, it shows that there are so many wise people out there today who constantly take steps deeper and deeper into admitting their ignorance before God.  They allow themselves to become empty vessels, blank canvases, so that they may receive more and more revelations of God. 

Throughout the history of our spiritual tradition, God became known through revelations over time.  In the bible, we have many examples of people receiving the revelations, but we probably have just as many of people refusing them.  Of course, the stories of those who received the revelations end well, and those of those who refused the revelations end terribly.

How, then, do we make ourselves fools before God?  The first thing is to understand that we will never know more than the all-knowing and omnipresent God.  The next step is to let God take care of us.  We should start to listen to God for guidance in all of our questions.  Obviously, the only way we can accept a revelation is by opening our eyes.  As Job said, "But now, my eyes see you," when he received an astonishing revelation of God, so should we as we receive revelations from God each day.

We can open up our spiritual eyes by coming into communication with God.  When we read the bible, we can start to understand more about who God is.  When we pray, we have a conversation with God, where we can hear the answers to our questions.