August 9, 2026 | When Wisdom Becomes Idolatry

When Wisdom Becomes Idolatry | Ecclesiastes 10

Ecclesiastes 10

    Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a stench;
            so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.
    A wise man’s heart inclines him to the right,
            but a fool’s heart to the left.
    Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense,
            and he says to everyone that he is a fool.
    If the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place,
            for calmness will lay great offenses to rest.


    There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were an error proceeding from the ruler: folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place. I have seen slaves on horses, and princes walking on the ground like slaves.

    He who digs a pit will fall into it,
            and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall.
    He who quarries stones is hurt by them,
            and he who splits logs is endangered by them.
    If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge,
            he must use more strength,
            but wisdom helps one to succeed.
    If the serpent bites before it is charmed,
            there is no advantage to the charmer.


    The words of a wise man’s mouth win him favor,
            but the lips of a fool consume him.
    The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness,
            and the end of his talk is evil madness.
    A fool multiplies words,
            though no man knows what is to be,
            and who can tell him what will be after him?
    The toil of a fool wearies him,
            for he does not know the way to the city.


    Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child,
            and your princes feast in the morning!
    Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility,
            and your princes feast at the proper time,
            for strength, and not for drunkenness!
    Through sloth the roof sinks in,
            and through indolence the house leaks.
    Bread is made for laughter,
            and wine gladdens life,
            and money answers everything.
    Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king,
            nor in your bedroom curse the rich,
    for a bird of the air will carry your voice,
            or some winged creature tell the matter. (ESV)

Ecclesiastes 10 teaches that wisdom is a good gift from God, but it cannot give us control over life. Wise choices may point us in the right direction, yet they cannot guarantee the outcomes we want. When we expect wisdom to provide certainty, we turn it into an idol and seek the omniscience that belongs to God alone. Wisdom still matters. It sharpens the ax, prepares us for danger, and helps us pursue fruitful work without becoming passive or fearful. We can act wisely, accept the risks that come with meaningful work, and trust God with the results.

Transcript of When Wisdom Becomes Idolatry | Ecclesiastes 10

Pursuing Wisdom Without Making It an Idol

Jed Gillis: I invite you to open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 10. If you're visiting with us, we've been going through the Book of Ecclesiastes. We're gonna continue here really looking at wisdom. And I think especially as we look at a new school year, as we look at whether you're a teacher, student, home school, day school, any of these contexts, as we look at new years of children's ministry and Awana and youth, as we look at whatever it is that's coming up in your life, it might be new, it might be continuing the same patterns.

As we look at that, I imagine we all feel two things. Probably some fear of the unknown, not sure how this is gonna go, and probably our need for wisdom. And this morning, as we continue thinking about this Book of Ecclesiastes, we're going to examine a little more closely what wisdom is and make sure we understand what wisdom can do for you.

Because like everything else, you can pursue something good, but you can pursue it in a way that actually results in a problem. You can pursue something good in a way that is idolatrous, that looks to worship the wrong thing.

And this morning, as we look at this text, I think we'll see wisdom can also be something you can idolize, something you can worship too much.

The Example of a Wise Driver

Jed Gillis: So a couple distinctions I wanna make. I want you just to think about an illustration. Let's pretend... Let's see, do we have anybody in here who has your learner's permit but not your driver's license? Got one in the room still. There were a couple of... Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Hey, when you look at somebody like...

Thank you, Joshua, for raising your hand. Somebody like Joshua, and you think, "I want them to be a wise driver." His dad says yes. no, I, want you to think, wait, what does that look like to be a wise driver? Just imagine, okay, what does it look like if you say, "That person, they're wise." Okay. There's some things that it's not.

Here's one thing it's not. It's not like a helicopter view of everything that happens around you so that you can just look around and so say "Oh, I'm gonna drive... Oh, somebody's coming up that road. I'll go a different direction." you don't know that, right? Not until you see them.

Driving wisely doesn't mean you know where every car is on the roads in Knoxville. Driving wisely doesn't mean that you're paranoid. You say, "I'll never drive anywhere." That's not what we want someone with a learner's permit. We don't want them to go, "Oh, nope, I could get hurt. Never driving." That's not what it means to drive wisely.

It also doesn't mean carelessness. If one of our younger drivers jumped in the car and peels out of the parking lot and, you know, they buzz down Buffett Mill at 90, they probably won't do it more than once, but if they did it, you'd say, "That's not a good plan. That's not driving wisely."

It's also not a guarantee that you will arrive at your destination safely. We've probably all known people who, from everything we know, they were driving wisely They're not the only people on the road. Sometimes you drive wisely and you still get in an accident.

Now, I think we all know that when it comes to driving. We all know it in certain areas in our lives, but there is a temptation to think that if we are wise, we will guarantee the outcomes we want. There's a temptation to think if you are a wise parent, your children will turn out like this.

Maybe. But don't you know some people you think were wise parents and their kids didn't turn out quite like what they thought they would?

We are tempted to think if you invest money wisely, you will have a lot of money But is that always true?

We're tempted to think if you're wise in your relationships, you'll have wonderful marriage and wonderful family relationships and wonderful coworker relationships. But is that always true? It's not.

We can be tempted to think that wisdom means I do these things and it guarantees certain outcomes. That's not how scripture talks about wisdom.

A Summary of The Teaching of Ecclesiastes

Jed Gillis: If we act like wisdom guarantees outcomes, then you'll actually undermine the whole point of Ecclesiastes. I summarized it in three sentences last week. I'm gonna repeat these 'cause I think they capture Solomon's overall picture, and as we come into chapter 10, it helps us.

Here's some of the things Solomon has said.

"Reality is frustrating because you live in a broken world." We all know that, don't we? We find things frustrating. Reality is frustrating.

"Control is impossible because this world is unpredictable." If I could rewind and say 10 years ago, you say, "Where will you be in 10 years?" Some of you would be pretty close. Some of you would be very far off from what you thought 10 years ago. Why? Because you can't control the future. You don't know all of those things with certainty. Solomon has said over and over, "You can't control the outcomes because this fallen world is unpredictable."

And then the last piece of his worldview is, "Joy and meaning and wisdom are all possible because God is a good giver."

Now, if we got here and said, "Yes, wisdom, that's how I control outcomes," we'd just be undermining what Solomon's been saying in the whole book. You can't control outcomes.

So what I wanna do is go through chapter 10, and he really uses these little pictures to talk about wisdom, to tell you two big things. One, it can't do certain things. It can't control your outcomes. But two, it can do some things that are really good for us.

Reading Ecclesiastes 10

Jed Gillis: So I'm gonna read this first section starting in verse one.

Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left. Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense, and he says to everyone that he is a fool. If the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place, for calmness will lay great offenses to rest.

Appearances Aren't Always Truth

Jed Gillis: Let's just take this section. This first section, he says wisdom can't guarantee outcomes, and there's one big theme, because appearances aren't always truth. We have a phrase like that, right? Appearances can deceive. Solomon is saying that wisdom can't guarantee outcomes because appearances might in fact deceive you.

So he starts with this picture and says, "You can be really wise in some things, and then you can make a foolish choice over here, and it can mess up all that wisdom." We know that's true, right? We know that happens. We know there are times when someone is really wise in many things in their lives, and then they make a really foolish choice and it's just gone.

His picture using words we probably don't often use, the perfumer's ointment. if it's polluted, it makes it smell bad instead of good. If the cookies you eat have a little bit of poison in them, they're not good cookies anymore, are they? It might taste good. Not gonna be good for you.

He starts with this. He says, "There's a reason you can't guarantee your outcomes with wisdom, because you might be wise in 90% of your life, but then pursue foolishness in one place, and it may mess it all up.

And that should sober us. That might make you say, forget it. Why pursue wisdom at all?" That's not Solomon's point.

But we need to sit with this tension that says even if I pursue wisdom in this area, I'm gonna be wise in my work and I work hard and I train and I advance in my career. And you say that guarantees the outcome, right? I don't know. It depends on how foolish you are at the end.

We could talk about stories of CEOs who were wise and advanced up to the top of their company and then stole money and ended in jail. Say, all that wisdom, it, worked for a while. But then they pursued foolishness. One reason wisdom doesn't guarantee outcomes.

You Can't Always Tell if Someone is Wise By Looking

Jed Gillis: Verse two gives us another thought about wisdom. "A wise man's heart inclines to the right, a fool's heart to the left." The picture here is you have two people walking down the same road, and from the outside you don't know, is he wise? Is he foolish? I'm not really sure what's going on. They're both walking down the same road.

But wisdom takes one person and moves them this direction, and wisdom takes the other person and moves them the other, or foolishness moves them the other direction. One reason that it would be impossible for wisdom to guarantee outcomes when you're looking at people from the outside is you're looking at two people. You don't know what's going on in their heart. You don't know which way they're going to turn when life's crossroads come.

So you look at someone and say, "This person is a very wise parent." You might look at somebody else and you're like, "I don't know if they're wise or not." But you don't know in five years from now what crossroads do they face, what challenges come up. You don't know if one of them will go off towards wisdom then or towards foolishness then, so you can't know they're wise, everything's gonna turn out exactly like I think it will. Solomon's gonna push this over and over again and say wisdom cannot determine your outcomes.

Wisdom Is Not Omniscience

Jed Gillis: Now, if you really stop and think about that and you're like me, I would say I hate that. I know it's God's word and I'm not supposed to hate it. But I would say I hate that because I want to guarantee my outcomes, don't you? Don't you feel that impulse that says I don't wanna just wonder how this is gonna turn out, I want to make sure it turns out the way it should

And so I grab wisdom and I say, if I can just get God's wisdom, then I know it's all gonna turn out exactly like I want it to Solomon says, "No, you can't guarantee outcomes by wisdom." That's because wisdom isn't omniscience.

One of the things I remember my dad telling me, I was wrestling with a decision in my life, and it was about, pursuing my wife actually at the time. And I knew I really wanted to, but I was just debating "Should I? I don't know. I don't know how it's all gonna turn out." My dad listened to me for a long time, and he basically just said, "It sounds like God's given you wisdom, and you want omniscience."

And I'm like, "Yeah, you're right." And so then I went and asked my wife out, and we're married, and it's great.

But we do that because when you idolize wisdom, what you're actually wanting is omniscience. Wisdom's gonna guarantee all my outcomes. No. God is good and God is the one who holds your outcome.

Wisdom Still Helps Keep You On the Right Path

Jed Gillis: Solomon drives us to say that's not what wisdom does, but there is something it can do.

Now he continues in verse three, "Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense." He says to everyone that he is a fool When the fool's going, before he turns, like he's walking on the right path. Have you ever known somebody that is doing kind of the right things, but you listen to them for a while and you're like, "They are not very wise"?

Could be a lot of different things. It could be the husband or the wife and you say when you see what they're doing, it looks like they're doing the right things, but you hear them talk about marriage and you're like, "This is not gonna end well." The fool can still be walking on the right road, but it doesn't end where they want it to end. Again, there's this disconnect between what you're doing and your outcome. You can't guarantee outcomes by acting wise because sometimes the fool's doing the same thing the wise man is. They're walking along, they get to a fork in the road, who knows which way they'll turn.

In verse four, it, really there's this contrast in, verse three. The fool looks safe, like he's walking along a road. But he's actually in danger 'cause he's a fool, and he'll end up going off who knows where.

In verse four, the wise person is the calm one who, when the ruler is against him, when the king's against him, the wise person looks like he's in danger, but he's actually safe. The appearances can deceive.

This is why, again, wisdom doesn't guarantee your outcomes because you sit here and go, "Oh no, this looks dangerous," but it might be exactly where you should be. "Oh, this looks safe," but it might actually be the worst place to be.

See, I can't rely on my present current wisdom to guarantee outcomes because I don't have omniscience. Just like a wise driver doesn't know where every car is. That's not the point. The point is a wise driver knows how the rules of the road works. They have basic understanding of how travel happens in our culture, in our world, so they know how to safely move.

Does it guarantee safety? No. But that's what they pursue.

More Examples of Appearances Being Deceiving

Jed Gillis: He gives us some other pictures, again, of how appearances can be deceiving. Verse five, "There's an evil I've seen under the sun, as it were, an error proceeding from the ruler." It's like he's saying, "I've seen this weighty thing that's really hard to understand. It's almost like God messed up," is what he's saying. Folly is set in many high places. Sometimes fools look successful. Seen that in this world? Yeah. And the flip side, the rich sometimes sit in a low place.

Now, in Hebrew parallelism, you should read rich and that should connect with wisdom because he's contrasting it with folly. So the point is that the, the wise person who has every reason to be in a good place is not in a good place.

So in other words, you might pursue wisdom and think, "This is gonna give me success in life," and find that sometimes the rich sit in a low place. Wisdom doesn't guarantee your outcomes. That's not what it's for.

Or verse seven, "I have seen slaves on horses and princes walking on the ground like slaves." Sometimes the wise and powerful people, they actually look like they're not wise and powerful. Sometimes the fools look like they have everything you could want.

By the way, in our world with credit cards and debt and other things like that, that absolutely happens at times. You might look at the person who looks like they have everything you want, and they might actually be careening towards a cliff. Foolish. We have that ability sometimes in our world. Again, wisdom is not going to guarantee how all of those things work out in your long run in your life.

So What Can Wisdom Do?

Jed Gillis: That's because he gets to verse eight and he turns to say, what can wisdom do?" He starts with this picture of where you can get certainty. "He who digs a pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall."

In other words, if you're trying to trap somebody, if you're foolish and malicious towards somebody else, you're gonna find harm to you. If you ... it talks about, breaks through a wall. It's like your neighbor's wall is there and you decide, "No, I really wanna move it," or, "I wanna break through it. I'm just gonna tear down parts of it." So you're malicious, you're foolish, and you're actually trying to hurt somebody. He's saying, "Look, if you're foolish, you're gonna find that you get hurt through that as well."

The Risk of Wisdom

Jed Gillis: But what if you're wise? Verse nine, "He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them." Any kind of meaningful work brings risk. Okay, so again, think wisdom doesn't guarantee outcomes. Why not? Because you can be working to do something very wise, and there's still risk If you go out and you split logs, if you go cut down a tree, that might need to happen. Can the tree fall in the wrong place sometimes? Yes. Is it dangerous? If you go build something, you go build a house, can you get hurt? Sure. You go replace a roof, can you get hurt? Yes. If you go drive, can you get hurt? Yes.

But we say it's meaningful to travel. I want to go to these places. Meaningful work brings risk. Whatever you do... and it's interesting, I thought about you could make a whole big long list. If you invest money, you might lose it If you build a business, you may spend more time on it than you should and neglect other important things. If you lead your family toward godliness, they might be mad at you, right? There's risk. If you pursue discipline in a classroom, you might be unpopular with students. There's risk in any meaningful work, and I think we all probably understand that.

If I were to ask you all those questions, "If you do this, is it possible that you face risk?" You'd say yes.

But I think we like to flip it around the other way and say things like this: If I am wise as a parent Then I know that my kids will be great and they will love me. Because we really want to guarantee our outcomes.

If I'm wise in investing, then I know that my financial situation will be good. Really? Wisdom doesn't guarantee outcomes because any wise, meaningful work brings risk. That's why he says, "He who quarries stones can be hurt by them. He who splits logs is endangered by them."

Wisdom Still Sharpens Your Ax

Jed Gillis: Then he gives this picture, "If the iron is blunt and one does not sharpen the edge," think on an ax, "he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed." Maybe by now you've heard me talk about wisdom enough and you're like, I guess what's the point of wisdom if it doesn't, control things? Why do I really worry about being wise if it doesn't guarantee my outcomes?"

And Solomon says, "Try chopping a tree with a dull ax." Not gonna work out well. Wisdom can't guarantee your outcomes, but it can sharpen your ax. It can direct you, it can lean you towards the joy and success that you do want to have happen in your life, the outcomes you want. It can make it easier to pursue them. Wisdom is not useless. But just because wisdom is not useless doesn't mean wisdom is God. It doesn't mean wisdom can control your outcomes

I had a friend who's preaching through Ecclesiastes, and I'm gonna quote him. He's a pastor who lives out in Arizona. He concluded with this. He said, "Don't use the unpredictability of life as an excuse for passivity. Don't pretend your choices don't matter. Wisdom cannot guarantee the outcome, but it can sharpen the ax. It can prepare you for danger, and then you entrust the rest to God."

Keep Wisdom In It's Proper Place

Jed Gillis: We need to be wise. If you think wisdom is gonna guarantee your outcomes, you'll find out it doesn't, and then you'll stop taking wise risks. Solomon's not calling you to that. He says, "Let wisdom be in its proper place." He gives another picture that is really foreign to us in verse 11, "If the serpent bites before it is charmed, there is no advantage to the charmer."

You go like, "I don't have a lot of experience with snake charming." The point is If you know the wise thing to do but the timing's off, you still don't get the outcome you want.

If you know how to charm a snake, which I don't, I doubt any of us do, but if you did, and you get ready to do that, and before you do, the snake bites you. Well, that didn't produce the outcome I wanted, did it?"

When we think of wisdom, one reason it doesn't control our outcomes is because we aren't omniscient. We don't know the timing. Sometimes it's we hesitate too much. Sometimes we're too fast and rush into things.

Now, we don't like that 'cause again, we wanna be in control. But remember, the point is wisdom cannot guarantee outcomes, but it can point you towards the joy and the success that you want. He gives you this picture of sharpening an ax.

Wisdom Gives You Direction

Jed Gillis: There's a second one in verse 15. He says, "The fool doesn't know the way to the city." If I were to tell you, "Why don't you leave here and drive towards Manhattan, Kansas?" Some of you would know where that is, roughly, and would at least know the right direction to go. Some of you would have absolutely no idea.

If you don't know the way to the city, you'll waste a lot of effort trying to get somewhere. You don't know where it is. The fool doesn't have wisdom to know, "Oh, this is the right direction to go," so he wastes a lot of effort going other places.

The wise person who has insight into God's world and how it works from His Word, the wise person knows the direction to head. They don't waste effort.

Wisdom can't guarantee outcomes, but it can sharpen your ax, it can make you more likely to succeed, and it can make sure you know the right direction to go.

What Does It Look Like for Wisdom to Sharpen the Ax in Your Life

Jed Gillis: And so I want you to take, as we conclude today, I want you to think about those two pictures. What does it look like for wisdom to sharpen the ax in your life? To make it easier for you to pursue what is really good in your life. What does it look like for wisdom to show you the way to the city, to show you the good end result in your life? To get that from God and His Word and His wisdom, not from foolishness.

It might look like I can get the training I need to pursue the career I want to pursue. Wisdom sharpens the ax, right? You go, "I'm gonna train. I'm gonna prepare for this." Maybe you are tempted to not prepare because you say, "I don't know how it's all gonna work out anyway." That's the whole point. Wisdom can't guarantee outcomes, right? But it can sharpen the ax. So you say, "What is it that I need to grow in my understanding, in my knowledge? What training do I need so that I'm leaning towards success? I'm moving towards that city."

Maybe it looks like that. Maybe wisdom sharpens the ax by you say, you saying, "I can have a hard conversation with someone before I just get bitter." The foolishness says, "I don't want the hard conversation. I don't know how it's gonna turn out." Sits over here and gets bitter, and then everything explodes.

Wisdom, sharpening the ax to say, "How do I move forward?" Says, "I'm gonna have this hard conversation before bitterness is a problem.

When you know you're struggling with sin in your life, wisdom can sharpen the ax by saying, "I'm going to do what it takes to turn from this sin before it ruins my life." We all know people like that who have seemed godly on the outside, who have held on to sin that ruined them.

Now, if you say, "I'm gonna pursue wisdom," does that guarantee the outcome that you want? No. But it sharpens the ax that says, "I know this sin can ruin me. I wanna be able to do what God has called me to do. I don't want my life to be ruined. I'm gonna pursue wisdom in this."

It might look like God's help controlling my impulses for food or spending or sexuality or entertainment before my ability to think and feel deeply disappears. That's wisdom. Does it guarantee how your life's gonna turn out? No. But it sharpens the ax so that you can accomplish the meaningful work God has for you.

Wisdom might say, "I need to put safeguards in specific areas of temptation in my life." Does it guarantee you'll never fall? No but it protects you It shows you the way to the city.

Wisdom says I can get rest and renewal in my life before I want to throw it all away. What is that doing? Does it guarantee your life turns out the way you want it to? No. But it sharpens your ax so you can do what you know you should. It protects you from danger so you're headed in the right direction.

That's what God gives you wisdom for. Not so you can be omniscient, not so you can know everything and control your outcomes. So that this year, as a homeschool mom or as a teacher, that you can say, "What do I need to do to sharpen the ax?" Not so that I know exactly how my kids will turn out or exactly how my classroom will be, but so that I know I'm pursuing the way God has said I should pursue it. I'm pursuing true joy and true meaning and true wisdom. What do I do to pursue that?

Where Are You Passive?

Jed Gillis: I wanna ask you two questions to consider, and I'm gonna do it two ways. I'll give you a question, and then I'll say, "Now, if you want a next step, like how do I even start doing that?" for each one.

First question, where are you passive in your life? Where do you have fruitful work that God has put in your life and you're like, "I just think I'm gonna avoid it 'cause I don't know how it'll turn out"? Where are you passive?

And maybe that's enough for you. Maybe you're like, "Oh, I can come up with 45 things that fit that category that I need to wrestle with God." Good. Maybe that's enough. But if you need something more specific, how do I go about that? How do I think about it? Here's one way.

Sit down with a piece of paper. If you're really brave, sit down with a piece of paper and somebody else and get them to do this with you, but piece of paper will work to start with. Do an inventory on your life. Write down places you go, "I wish I was more fruitful in this area or this area." And then write down, say, "If I weren't afraid that the outcome won't be what I want, what would I do today?"

If you have some project, you say, "I wanna work on that, but I'm sure it won't turn out good, so I'm just not gonna touch it." If you weren't afraid that the outcome might not be what you want, what would you do? What would change in your life?

If you weren't afraid that the outcome in your parenting or your marriage or your job was gonna be something you didn't want, what would you say, "Oh, this is good to do right now. I'm gonna do that"?

That's question one. Where are you passive?

Where Do You Need to Sharpen the Ax?

Jed Gillis: Second thing, to use his metaphor, where do you need to sharpen the ax? Where do you need to pursue more wisdom so that it's easier for you to be fruitful?

Again, maybe that question is enough for some of you. Maybe you say, "I already can think of forty-five things. Probably if you're like me, you're like, "I can think of a million things. I just don't have time." Sure.

But if that question is not enough for you to get started somewhere, ask this question. Read, read ... Not ask this question. Take this step. Read Proverbs starting in chapter 11 and just notice all the patterns that God describes about His world.

For example, there are many patterns that talk about money in Proverbs. So take some time, read in, Proverbs 11 and say, This talks about money. How do my patterns of money align with these patterns? Do they match? Am I trying to live according to God's patterns? Am I trying to cut a tree with a sharp ax? Or am I living in a way that doesn't match the patterns God said, and it feels so hard?

Where do you need to sharpen the ax so that fruitfulness is easier?

When we think wisdom guarantees outcomes, we turn wisdom into an idol because we're pursuing omniscience. That's really foolish. And eventually idolizing wisdom in a fallen world turns us into either anxious control freaks or passive, despairing victims. Both of those come from the fact that you think I can guarantee all my outcomes.

And what God wants you to do instead is not trust yourself for control, but trust God for his goodness. And then take the opportunities he's put in front of you and act on them. Enjoy God, enjoy his gifts, enjoy the work he's given you to be fruitful without the pressure of thinking you can guarantee all of your outcomes.

And then instead of wisdom being an idol of omniscience, wisdom is a good gift from God. That He didn't just take you, give you your cosmic learner's permit, shove you out on the road and say, "Good luck. I'm not gonna tell you anything about how the rules of the road work. Hope they work out for you." No, He gave you His Word full of wisdom, full of patterns about how His world works and how to live life.

God gave you wisdom. Receive it as a gift from God. Don't try to make it omniscience.

I invite you to take a moment. Bow before God and respond to Him. I find myself learning this over and over that I tend to want wisdom to be omniscience. Ask God to work in your life to help you sharpen the ax and to pursue wisdom as a gift from him. I invite you to respond to him and then we'll sing.