I knew it. Lady Wisdom?
She’s a morning person.
Proverbs 8:34-35 says it . . . “Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me; awake and ready for me each morning, alert and responsive as I start my day’s work. When you find me, you find life, real life, to say nothing of God’s good pleasure.”
“You sayin’ I gotta be all bright and bushy-tailed every morning to be wise? Because I am NO morning person. I have it posted on my front gate: ‘If God Had Intended For Me To Be A Morning Person, He’d Have Sunrise At Noon.’ ”
Nope. Takes us all, working in harmony with one another, to operate this thing we call The Church–a group of amazingly-diverse, multi-talented folks whose greatest unifying reason for community is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That doesn’t mean beyond the unifying factor of Jesus, a lot of us just wouldn’t have anything to do with one another. I’ve been around ‘churches’ that gave the impression they couldn’t stand one another and were only present for the mac and cheese and Gramma Ferguson’s ‘fural ‘taters. So have you. That may be ‘a church’, but it’s not The Church.
Those verses say Lady Wisdom, who says of herself, “I live next to Sanity; Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street . . . you can find me on Righteous Road at the intersection of Justice Avenue”, is definitely up and at ’em first thing in the morning.
As a pre-teen I was just as much a lollygagger as you. “AAAh-Ohhhh, do I HAVE to get u-u-u-u-p?” See? You get it. You automatically wrinkled your nose and recited that with me in that maddenly-irritating whiney voice we teens lah-owng ago perfected. It was intended to immediately set our parents’ teeth on edge.
Yes. Like dirty fingernails on an old blackboard. Instant discord. Parental units casting Cylon eyes for the nearest leather or wooden instrument of retribution.
Lady Wisdom does seem pretty persistent in encouraging you and I to get the lead out in the mornings and keep seeking her and her benefits. Solomon took up what, for us, became 8 chapters telling us about her.
She does not give any impression she’ll sit out in the car and wait on us to finish texting one another or posting the latest zit on Facebook. She just puts it out there, inviting you and I to hop in, ride along, learning as we go. “… awake and ready for me each morning, alert and responsive as I start my day’s work . . . “
“Okay, wait. Tha-a-at’s beginning to sound like responsibility.”
I know, right?
“So, myself not being a morning person, am I being left out of the deal?”
Nope. Hmph-mm. No exclusions based on Death By Clock Radio. Or Death OF Clock Radio. Yet I’m reminded of all those speakers and teachers and writers across the years who all – ALL – agreed in telling me to have my quiet time first thing in the morning. I know they all were NOT People Of The Sunrise. I saw more than a few of them at breakfast.
They’d evidently carpooled with Lady Wisdom a few times and figured it out. Take time, make time for you and Him before doing anything else. Predistraction. Preschedule.
It just seems to work better that way.
Oh–no, I don’t know how good a driver Lady Wisdom is.
You can ask her.
© D. Dean Boone, August 2014