with age comes wisdom

(a long life is a good life)

This week our family journeyed to Pennsylvania to be part of the funeral services for Erma Rader. Aunt Erma was 96, possessed great faith, never married, lived in her own home her entire life and was a blessing to multiple generations of her family. I only had the privilege of knowing her for the past 18 years or so…but I see the legacy she created in my wife and in my daughters all of whom will miss her dearly. Every family needs such a rock upon which the generations can stand. Every family needs someone to be the fount of wisdom accumulated over time.

“Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness…” Ecclesiastes 2:13-14

Wisdom is more than just an inherent intellect…it’s more than just book learning and degrees hanging on the wall. Wisdom is an accumulation of knowledge over time that results in good sense and sound judgment. It’s based on the bedrock of core beliefs and framed with the experiences of our life. There is never a single point where we become “wise”…we just move along the continuum. We gain by teaching and by being taught. What a wonderful and interesting journey it can be.

Will you take the advice of Solomon and seek and value wisdom? There’s no folly in that!

Thanks for all you do.

Brian

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Abundant Life

(the world want's us to seek after stuff, but true happiness comes from somewhere else)

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

John 10:10

What is an abundant life? If you follow the model of the modern media, it has a lot to do with how we look and what we own. It is based on being famous for being famous, for having a dog that fits in your purse, for the clothes you wear and who you parents are. It’s also about being wealthy, wrecking cars and going to rehab, with plenty of people paid to clean up the messes you make in your life.

What is an abundant life? If you follow the Biblical model it’s quite a bit different. It’s a life lived with a pure spirit that endeavors to make good decisions based on the solid information contained in scripture. It’s a life lived free from guilt, secure in the knowledge that a bad decision need not be followed by another and another, that we can stop the cycle and move in a different direction at any time.

An abundant life is filled with the knowledge that we have taken responsibility for the consequences of our decisions, that we didn’t run away and hide. It’s a life filled with hope, secure in the grace and mercy available through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The scars of the past can be healed.


Brian

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