Do you ever wonder if the person to whom you’re speaking is a wise person (as opposed to a wise guy)?
Here’s a tip: how easy is it for that person to say “I don’t know”?
I have a standard wise guy response that I often use in the following scenario:
Unsuspecting person: “I have a question.”
Wise Guy Me: “I have an answer.”
Unsuspecting Person: “I haven’t even asked the question.”
Wise Guy Me: “I didn’t say it would be a good answer.”
It’s actually that last response that starts to shift me from wise guy mode to wisdom-seeker mode because, as I have grown in my life experiences, I find it much easier to say, “I don’t know.”
I must admit that in my youthful insecurity I felt threatened by questions I couldn’t answer. I became a senior pastor of a church at the age of 26. I thought that meant I was supposed to have all the answers. I was, after all, a seminary graduate. Certainly my professors had taught me everything I needed to know about leading a church and teaching/preaching the Bible!
Ah, the certainty of youth.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out that formal education is only a small percentage of the education necessary to succeed in life. In fact, I’d suggest that there are several “classrooms” that we enter over the course of our lives.
There is, of course, the classroom of formal education. We learn (or at least memorize) facts, principles, and perhaps a few skills. Hopefully, we at least learn how to study and do research.
There is also the classroom of life experiences. Here we learn how those facts, principles, and skills work—or don’t—in the real world. We even learn that the laboratories of formal education are much more controlled environments than our workplaces and neighborhoods. We learn things that can ONLY be learned by hands-on experience.
And then there’s the classroom of hard knocks and dumb mistakes. Here’s where we learn how to recover when the stuff we learned in school doesn’t work or we fail in our understanding or implementation. Here’s where the people we work with “bob” when we expected them to “weave.”
I recently heard someone say that “healthy” people are not those who never get sick. Health is measured by how quickly you recover.
I think the same is true of “wisdom.” Wise people are not those who never fail or make mistakes. Wisdom is measured by what you learn that enables you to recover and move forward.
“So don’t bother correcting mockers; they will only hate you. But correct the wise, and they will love you. Instruct the wise, and they will be even wiser. Teach the righteous, and they will learn even more” (Proverbs 9:8-9).
We have so much to learn from each other if we’ll get over our fear of appearing ignorant.
Practice it with me: “I. Don’t. Know. (But I’m willing to learn).”
Be amazing today, my friend.
