Head Knowledge to Heart Wisdom
I grew up going to church. In fact I can’t remember a season of my younger life that I didn’t go. Bible stories and verses filled my impressionable young mind. Somewhere between the sermons and Sunday school crafts my moral compass was formed. A foundation of knowledge was laid, and for that I am eternally grateful. Like most kids, I eventually spread my wings and left the comfort of my home. The accountability of my parents dragging me to church, because some days it took a miracle to get my moody teenage self out of bed, was suddenly gone. Here is where the two roads diverged like Robert Frost warned me about. For once in my life I had to be accountable to only myself for cultivating the rich soil my parents help lay.
We all go through the coming of age stories where we as young adults start to wrestle with past and the future while living in the present. For me, it looked like mission trips with the college Baptist Student Ministry at West Texas A&M one month and bar hopping with work friends the next. Soon even the comfort of the BSM was gone and I replaced it with things of the world. Until I came to the point in my life where Christian maturity begins. Would I take all that head knowledge that my faith was founded on and allow God to turn it into a heart knowledge, or would I let the floodwaters of adulthood freedom wash away my foundation?
““Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it wont’ collapse because it is build on bedrock. “ Matthew 7:24-25”
This was my heart’s cry, my unrelenting prayer for God to take that head knowledge and turn it to heart knowledge. I love Paul’s prayer for the people of Thessalonian church, “Night and day we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again to fill the gaps in your faith.” My gaps were the distance between my heart and my head, and many days it felt as far as the east is from the west!
The faith of my youth was filled with fiery passions of church camp, mountaintop experiences on mission trips, and candlelit youth worship nights that left me weeping in an unrestrained fire for God. The faith of my adulthood looked more like a tiny candle flame than the wildfires in my youth. My adult faith was adding one brick at a time to my foundation in obedience. It was going to bible studies when my all I wanted was to go home and lounge in my pjs. It was actually reading the bible, even the parts that I didn’t understand. It was saying yes to a church invitation when a Netflix marathon was calling my name instead. In His faithfulness, God is filling the rooms of my home with wisdom. He is lavishing his love on me by closing those gaps of my faith, even in this season where I have to earnestly beg Him to multiply these tiny moments of time spent with Him between wiping one snotty nose and reading one more story book. My life is so abundant now because the beating of my heart is to be filled with more and more wisdom until I reach my Father’s house in heaven where there are a limitless number of rooms. If you find yourself feeling stuck in those gaps, one step at a time sister! Obedience builds discipline builds knowledge builds wisdom. One brick at at time!
“A house is built by wisdom and becomes strong through good sense. Through knowledge its rooms are filled with all sorts of precious riches and valuables. The wise are mightier than the strong, and those with knowledge grow stronger and stronger.” Proverbs 24:3-5
