One sunny afternoon I was walking down the street and thanking God for the most recent nugget of wisdom he gave me. That nugget was exactly what I needed at the moment.

Isn’t it strange that sometimes we forget how wise God is? I often expect big solutions to my problems to be dropped into my lap. However, most of the time it’s a sentence that shifts the focus and creates a new perspective leading me a way out.

Another fascinating quality of God is His love. Especially the fact that he doesn’t boast or put boundaries. He could act like the world by putting any supernatural experience of Him into a premium package that can be bought only after 50 hours of intense prayer.

Thankfully, prayers are free and a relationship with the Maker of the universe is without any cost because Jesus paid the price fully for us.

I was praising and thanking God for this reality that I can partake in. I thought of wisdom and started wondering how does someone can be wise. At that very moment heard the small still voice in my heart saying,

“you can also be wiser, selflessness is the language of wisdom”.

The selflessness

It’s clear enough that if I want to be wiser, I need to be looking at ways to practice selflessness.

It got me thinking. Why is it that selflessness unlocks a way to speak wisdom?

Selfishness raises the self higher than anyone else. On the contrary, selflessness does the opposite. It forgets self and seeks the benefit of others.

No one would argue that wisdom is useless. It’s loaded with benefits! However, none of these benefits are for the wisdom itself.

Wisdom is utterly selfless.

If wisdom is the language of selflessness that means it never seeks the benefit of its own. It always attempts to benefit the other. Just like love does. Just like who God is. It always attempts to benefit the other.

Whether by giving or instructing. We can’t do anything to benefit wisdom, but we can benefit the one who hears us.

The language

Does wisdom have its own language?

According to Britannica dictionary, language is defined as:

“a system of conventional spoken, manual (signed), or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves. The functions of language include communication, the expression of identity, play, imaginative expression, and emotional release.”

In short, language is a consistent system of symbols to help us to express ourselves. Then wisdom has a system of expression which is selflessness.

Wisdom is not expressed in outward appearance or results but in the motivation of the heart. This motivation is always someone else.

On the opposite, wisdom is not found in deceit or craftiness that seeks to benefit self at the price of the other.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. (Genesis 3:1a, ESV)

The serpent isn’t called wise but crafty because it was seeking to benefit itself. We could say that deceit is the language of selfishness.

However, wisdom remains faithful to the one it’s committed to serve. It has to be consistent in order to stay pure. It cannot be mixed with another language.

The value

In the city where I live almost every bakery makes brioches. They are croissant shaped buns filled either with chocolate or the sauce of sweet white cream or jam.

When I say “filled” I mean that the first bite might be disappointing but the second blesses you with a big blob of filling which not only satisfies your sweet tooth but the chin and (God forbid!) the sweater.

That’s how I would introduce wisdom as a carrier of an extraordinary load of value! When wisdom touches your mind, it overwhelms and truly satisfies. It doesn’t leave you wondering if you had enough.

If you bought a brioche and find no filling inside, I’m sure it would bring a sense of being robbed.

Wisdom being selfless and carrying a big weight of value will never leave you disappointed.

Jesus spoke about being truly filled and ceasing to search for more satisfaction.

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13–14, ESV, emphasis mine)

The one that drinks the living water that Jesus selflessly gives will cease from being thirsty. That’s not the end, though. The water will turn the one who partakes of it into a spring impacting those that are still thirsty.

Where it all meets

After more pondering about the sentence God said about wisdom I found this passage:

It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us ​ — ​our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption in order that, as it is written: Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:30, KJV, emphasis mine)

Jesus Himself became wisdom for us. He wasn’t good for His own interest but for the benefit of others. All of His life is a sacrifice that wasn’t required to be made.

Only the selfless reaches true wisdom because it seeks the benefit of the other. It removes a lot of distractions and unnecessary foam from seeing the true manifestation of pure and selfless wisdom.

I love how pulling almost a random thread in the Bible leads me to Jesus. I could end building my own wisdom so that I would receive praise for being so smart. Yet, the Holy Spirit quietly guides me back to what’s the most important.

Jesus fluently spoke the language of wisdom because He was completely selfless. There’s nothing He did for selfish gain. All that He did doesn’t leave us disappointed. If we surrender there’s more than enough grace and peace to everyone.

I’m willing to partake of this harmony. Are you?

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