The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.
(Psalm 111:10a)
Until I reflected on this verse earlier today, it hadn't occurred to me what a difference there was between spiritual wisdom and human wisdom. We normally think of wisdom as a deep understanding of life, acquired over time and through experience. Scripture switches this around radically: Spiritual wisdom begins with unequivocal surrender to God.
Abraham was an old man when he surrendered not only his long-awaited son, but the very promise that God had given him. It was this complete surrender in faith that convinced the Lord that Abraham feared (revered) Him. According to "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," Abraham's wisdom didn't even begin until that moment. No wonder this is God's definition of wisdom! When we remain determined to cling to anything that is not Him, we're blocking Him. He doesn't ask for free reign in order to annoy us. He does it so that He can take hold of the world and transform it.
"A good understanding have all those who do His commandments." We can't act on His commandments until we release control to Him.
...Wait a minute -- what? Of course we can! We can obey what scripture tells us to do. Yet these two lines are paired together in verse 10 for a reason. There's a crucial link between fearing the Lord and doing His commandments. We are never truly doing His commandments until we've put all our idols and rights at His feet. Until we have, no matter how much outward obedience we demonstrate, we won't be acting in harmony with His heart's purposes.
In fact, demonstrating outward obedience without laying everything at His feet is a perfect formula for messing things up. We get just enough understanding and love for the Lord to think we know how the Christian life is "done," and we run with it. We either set in motion a lifeless religious experience, virtually devoid of God's transforming presence, or -- perhaps decades later -- we discover we've wandered out onto a limb of our own. (Ask me how I know.) Either way, we become disconnected from God's purposes and from His heart.
Lord, teach Your people to surrender everything at Your feet in love and reverence, and to obey You out of that surrender. Give us true wisdom -- the kind that can only be passed to us directly from Your heart.