I've been trying to read a chapter from proverbs just about every day for years now. I crave wisdom in such a huge way.
Being a full-time musician has its challenges in ways you might not normally think of. There's always the thin line of letting people know what you're doing and feeling like you're doing too much 'self-promotion'. No one in your life can really tell you where that line is. The Holy Spirit has to guide you and even then, it can feel tricky to discern His voice.
Today I read Proverbs 7 and was struck again by a simple piece of advice.
"Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family." Prov. 7:4
I have one older sister whom I dearly love. We have been friends since I was little. We shared a bedroom in our big old farm house growing up and I think I caused her distress sometimes because I wasn't too great at keeping our bedroom real neat.
She was real good at saving money and the family used talk about going to 'the bank of Brenda' because if anyone in the family had money - she did. Even if it was just the little 'see me save' bank in which she collected her money.
She was also a good seamstress and I remember one Easter in particular when she made me the most beautiful long dress I had ever seen. It was brightly flowered and had a beautiful green ribbon around the waist. As I recall, she stayed up a good portion of the night to finish that in time for Easter morning.
We would make music together too. She would play the flute and later the recorder and we would do classical music duets together or sing our favorites from the Honeytree songbook.
When Proverbs says to love wisdom like a sister, I get that kind of relationship. The hard part is figuring out how to really love something that you can't see.......like wisdom. But I think it is a gradual quiet kind of attachment, just as it was growing up with my sister. We spent time together. We did things together. Even now we e-mail, call on the phone and try to have 'sister time' when we do get together as a family...even if it's just a walk around the block.
So loving wisdom must be like that. When I read Proverbs, I'm loving wisdom. When I pray about decisions and ponder what the Holy Spirit might be saying to me, I'm loving wisdom. When I make choices based on the inner guidance I sense, I'm loving wisdom.
When I fight the feelings I have inside and don't want to follow through, I'm pulling myself away from that 'sister' relationship and letting something come in between. When I feel too busy to read and meditate on the Scriptures and let the busyness win, I'm shutting out that 'family' member.
I want to include wisdom in everything I do so that wisdom is a part of my 'family'. It's easy to love my sister because she's a part of me and has been a long time.
It must be like that with wisdom. The more time I give to it and the longer I know it, the more I will make it a part of me and my family.
