Spiritual Wisdom Is Daily Living Wisdom
You
have a body living in a physical world. Your body is controlled by your mind,
which is supervised by your soul. Everyday living in balance and harmony
requires the alignment of the body, the mind, and the soul. To have this perfect
alignment, the help of spiritual wisdom is necessary.
Where
does spiritual wisdom come from?
The
Bible is the Word of God. Through the Bible, God speaks to each and every one
of us. But God's wisdom is often beyond the understanding of man. Jesus often uses parables to
explain Biblical truths because it is not readily available to the human mind;
God's wisdom is always profound and unfathomable to many.
To
pursue God's wisdom in the Bible, understanding human wisdom is the
"first" step.
It is
true that if we diligently and fervently pursue God's wisdom, such as reading the
Bible, God will use the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and our minds. However,
we may require human wisdom to overcome our disbelief first before there is further
understanding.
To
seek God's wisdom, first and foremost, we need to know who we really are.
Unfortunately, many of us do not really know who we are, let alone what we want in our lives.
Why
is that? It is because human thinking is imperfect. According to the famous
statement "I think, and therefore I am" of Descartes, the great French philosopher,
we think and therefore we become what we think we are, that is, the product of
our thoughts. However, that statement is only partially true: due to flawed
human thinking, we may not be the sum of our thoughts, because our thoughts are
only partially true. Therefore, we are not really who and what we think
we are.
"True"
human wisdom is an endeavor to understand who we are and what we need.
Understanding the self helps us understand the true nature of things, or the
laws of nature. Without understanding the natural laws of this world, human
sufferings and ordeals in life often become stumbling blocks to understanding
spiritual wisdom. Indeed, many of us find ourselves often asking the questions:
Why me? Where is God?
Lao
Tzu's immortal classic Tao Te Ching explains the essentials of human wisdom,
which involve "reverse" thinking from the "conditioned"
mindset of conventional wisdom. He explains how to acquire "true"
human wisdom, without which there is little or no intent to seek God's
wisdom, let alone understanding the wisdom of God expressed in the Bible.
Understanding
human wisdom begins with the mind -- an empty and inquisitive mind with the intent to
ask questions to find out who we are and what we want. Asking questions
enhance awareness, which
is an important ingredient of human wisdom. With acute awareness, we
develop clarity of
mind. Heroes in movies often know the right thing to do because they have
clarity of mind. In life, no amount of training can compensate for clarity of
mind, which enables you to separate the truths from the half-truths or myths.
Stephen
Lau
Copyright©
2018 by Stephen Lau
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