If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. James 1:5
One of the more pithy comments that was recently posted on Facebook was the declaration that common sense is not a flower that grows in everybody’s garden. Oh, how we all sigh at the truth of that statement! In fact, common sense seems to have been uprooted from our world and tossed aside to accommodate some of the most ridiculous movements that have ever cropped up in all of history. Take for example, the Members of Parliament who have destroyed the literary beauty of our national anthem because somebody thought the words ‘in all thy sons command’ was somehow sexist and not gender neutral. That’s not common sense. Take for example, the so-called educators who are trying to teach our children arithmetic by tossing out the simple and effective operations that so many of us easily learned and implementing operations that take three times as long to learn and four times as long to perform. That’s not common sense. Take for example, the new transgender bathroom rules that cater to deeply psychotic oddballs and ignore the glaring exposure of women and children to sexual predators. That’s not only not common sense, it is also dangerous. And I could go on and on about the lack of common sense that floods our modern society. And there is no reason for it, because our text makes it clear that God is more than willing to give common sense to everybody and anybody who wants it.
Common sense is nothing more nor less than wisdom in work clothes. Wisdom is something that every one of us don’t have enough of. In fact, it doesn’t take long for us to come up with a good-sized list of the foolish mistakes that we have made in our lives. Those mistakes are proof that we – at that time at least – were short on wisdom. Over time, some of us learn from our mistakes, learn from the mistakes of others, and learn some lessons that help us to avoid some types of mistakes. The problem seems to be in recognizing that we lack wisdom; if we don’t realize we need it then we won’t desire it. So the first step in obtaining wisdom is in recognizing that we need it. In particular, when it comes to spiritual matters, we truly need wisdom. We need to be able to know when it is appropriate to speak a word in witness for our Lord, when it is appropriate to stand up for godliness and when to avoid situations that the devil sets before us as a trap. We need to discern the evils that are around us that are apparently invisible to the world. We need to know how to conduct ourselves in terms of raising and educating our families, in terms of our relations with fellow Christians, in terms of balancing our need for employment with the claims of Christ. The list of times and places where we need godly wisdom is far beyond the space of this article to tell.
There is no secret to obtaining wisdom. If we recognize that we need it, we ask God to give it to us, and He will. It really is as simple as that. – Jim MacIntosh