‘Blessed are those who find wisdom who gain understanding’.Proverbs 3

I believe that one of the greatest gifts that God gave to mankind was wisdom. Imagine our Lord has made us partners in his creation through physics, biology, chemistry , theology, philosophy he has allowed us access to the mind of God. By maths we can prove what we can’t see, in the laboratory we can create life saving drugs. No witchcraft, superstition and other assorted nonsense but the incomparable beauty of a strand of DNA or a snowflake under the microscope. The sweeping literature of Shakespeare the perfection of Bach.

But there is one element to the gift of wisdom which I believe we often overlook. Life is a series of encounters , decisions from which there is no escape and inevitably some turn out to be good some bad. God leaves a series of signposts on the road of life choices which we must make. It is part of the gift of free will which serves,if properly used and valued, to give us wisdom and maturity as we grow older. What would be the value of life without such a process?

Yet I fear that in today’s world of Facebook,Instagram and the like that we live totally in the moment without ever giving ourselves pause for reflection. Hence the importance of the grace of prayer a chance to review our actions with God and gain learning. We thank him for the good and where necessary ask forgiveness for the bad in the process turning negative into positive. As the gospel teaches ‘ wisdom is proven right by her actions.’