Morning Coffee #54: The Wisdom of Solomon… aka A Wise Guy Once Told Me To Be Humble
The story of King Solomon in the Bible is one of my favourites. From him building the most beautiful temple in Jerusalem to him ordering a baby to be cut into half so that the child’s true mother could come forward, and even him having several wives and concubines, I have always been fascinated by him.
There’s one thing though that I find intriguing. He was given wisdom by God after he said that he was too young to rule and didn’t know anything. God asked him to name anything he wanted. The man chose wisdom. It seems like a no-brainer but let’s think it through.
When people are asked what they’d wish for if they had 3 wishes or what their super powers would be if they could have any 3, I have noticed that a lot of people will mostly go for some cliche wishes like being rich or being strong or some not-so-surprising superpower like flight or invisibility. Only very few people ask for something like wisdom. I still don’t know why.
My morning thoughts went to Solomon this morning because a statement from my older cousin kept popping up in my head. He told me that for me to get somewhere, I have to be humble enough to go through the motions instead of magically appearing at my destination. Humility, he told me, will make me see the reality of things and do what is necessary.
The common misconception is that being humble means being a pushover. I think this is wrong. Being humble to me means acknowledging whatever is on ground and doing what can be done at that moment. And this sounds a lot like wisdom to me because it is not wise for someone to travel to Greece to take photos and post on Instagram only to come back home to fight her landlady over delayed rent payment. I swear that is not a true story but it does sounds like it should be.
Another thing I’ve come to learn about wisdom is that it isn’t as flashy as we make it. Oh that guy is wise! The end product or final result of a wise decision often looks so good but wisdom itself is not attractive. Take the example of King Solomon ordering that baby to be cut in half and shared between the two women who argued over it. What if both women agreed for the child to be shared like cake? I guess we’ll never know but having a baby being cut in the presence of people must be horrifying and I’m sure someone must have been like omg thou art verily wrongeth for this! But somehow, the problem was solved. The true mother came forward and said the child should be given to the other woman instead and that was how Solomon solved the case of the stolen child.
Where am I going with all this? Well, it’s more of a simple question. In order to attain wisdom and grace, are we willing to be humble? That’s my current musing.
Cheers!
