I'm wise enough to know what smart is

As a child, I fervently prayed to God for wisdom. The Bible says that if we pray for wisdom that God will grant it in abundance.
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:5).
Apparently he must have found fault with me, because I never seemed to get the wisdom I asked for. As the text continues, “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.”
I equated wisdom with being smart. I believed only smart people are wise. It wasn’t until I was well into my adult years that I learned that wisdom and knowledge are two very different things. Knowledge is basically facts, information and understanding. Wisdom is the ability to prudently put knowledge into practice.
The whole time I was praying for wisdom, I really wanted knowledge. I wanted to be smart. What I wanted was for my own benefit, not for the glory of God.
You see, I had incredibly low self-esteem in my younger years. I was led by my peers to believe I was stupid. It turns out that I’m just slow. Being slow is not the same as being stupid. Somehow the two had become synonymous in our culture and in our education system.
In addition to being slow, I’ve always had a very difficult time with memorization. In elementary school, most tests were either timed or required rote memorization. Not being too good at either cost me a lot more than grades. I was seen by my peers as slow and stupid and often not worth their time. Bullies seemed to have plenty of time for me, however, which made school that much more difficult.
Moving ahead, one of the things that attracted me to journalism was that while it may be a deadline-oriented career, writing always gave me a chance to stop and compose my thoughts. Given the time to do what I needed, I discovered that I really wasn’t stupid (please, no comments from the peanut gallery).
It wasn’t long before my peers and former teachers who had pigeonholed me as an unteachable sloth were complimenting me on my insight and my ability to tell a story. It turns out that God did hear my prayers. He did grant me wisdom and knowledge. He just did it on his timetable, not mine. Either that or it took me this long to figure it out.
I do not believe in the slightest that I possess an abundance of wisdom but I do have enough to know that there will always be someone smarter, faster, more eloquent, slower, less intelligent and thickheaded than me. The only thing I’ll ever be the best at is being me. Trust me, it ain’t that hard!
All of this leads us to the question of why does anyone else care if I’m smart or stupid, wise or foolish? It matters because there are a lot of children in schools today who are waging the same internal struggle. Likewise, there are a lot of smart people out there who are ignorantly inflicting their view of intelligence on their peers and students who, like me, just need a little more time to work things out upstairs.
Remember this folks, it was the tortoise that beat the hare. Slow and steady wins the race. To borrow another cliché, this is my word to the wise and I’m sticking to it.

Reining in Rudolph
This weekend at First Colony Church of Christ in Sugar Land will present the world premier of the musical “Rudolph”. This original tale is loosely based on the animated “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” with a Christian twist to it. The music is original and very catchy. There is a lot of humor in the show and great sets and costumes. While I know this isn’t a local church, it is the church that my family attends, along with State Rep. John Zerwas.
I have the distinguished role of “elf” and my wife is cast as the “assistant director.” She is also one of the costumers. Last year in FCCC’s Winter’s Eve program, I was Santa and Sandy was “soot-covered neighbor.” Our eldest son Wesley is returning to his position behind the spotlight.
If you’re willing to drive an hour or so to Sugar Land this weekend, please try to catch one of the three performances. Tickets are $5 each and the money supports the Second Mile Mission. Showtimes are Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets will be available at the door or online at www.firstcolonychurch.org.