Choose Relationship - Advent Devotional Day 19

Scripture
"My child, eat honey, for it is good.
    The honeycomb is sweet in your mouth.
Know that wisdom is like that for your whole being.
    If you find it, there is a future.
    Your hope won’t be cut off." - Proverbs 24: 13-14

Reflection
We live in the information age where “facts” are one click away 24/7. The church can often be just one more place where getting it RIGHT –the right words, the right understanding, the right people– reigns supreme at the cost of whatever and whoever gets in the way. But the Bible demonstrates time and again that God is less interested in our knowledge than in our wisdom. My favorite way to think about the difference is with the help of a quote (attributed to a variety of people over the years), “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting one in your fruit salad.” Knowledge is about information, wisdom is about context and, often, relationship. Knowledge is black and white, wisdom relies on all the varied subtle shades in between.

That spectrum of understanding the world and the people in it is exactly where I am finding hope in my everyday life right now. It is sweet like honey to know that God calls me to come to the table, every table from the one in my dining room to the one at the office, with the lens of wisdom that allows me to consider far more than meets the eye in any given moment. That’s where grace lives, in a place of deep understanding and acceptance. I often tell my kids (and remind myself), “You can be right, or you can be in relationship.” May we choose relationship whenever possible.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for offering us opportunities to grow in wisdom every single day. Open our eyes to new ways of understanding that prompt us to extend love and grace evermore lavishly to those around us and to ourselves. When we long for easy answers and binary ways of seeing the world, remind us that you offer something much sweeter in all of the richness and complexity of your creation. In Jesus name, amen.