A Resolution Worth Keeping

For my first entry this year I am going to borrow heavily from Cornelius Plantinga Jr. As I began reading The Way It's NOT Supposed to Be, I found the first five chapters unremarkable. Then with the chapter titled "Sin and Folly" I saw the genius of Dr. Plantinga once more revealed as his survey tackles the concept of folly. He correctly assumes that to understand what folly is we must understand its opposite: wisdom.

In Dr. Plantinga's words, "To be wise is to know and affirm reality, to discern it, and then to speak and act accordingly. The wise accommodate themselves to reality. [author's italics] They go with the flow. They tear along the dotted line. They attempt their harvests in season. Ordinary people proceed with such a program no matter whether they have derived their wisdom from Scripture or from more general revelation. From Proverbs or from their grandmother, the wise eventually learn and then accommodate themselves to such truths as the following:

• The more you talk the less people listen
• If your word is no good, people will not trust you, and it is then useless to protest this fact.
• Trying to cure distress with the same thing that caused it only makes matters worse.
• If you refuse to work hard and take pains, you are unlikely to do much of any consequence.
• Boasting of your accomplishments does not make people admire them. Boasting is vain in both senses of the word.
• Envy of fat cats does not make them slimmer and in the end will rot your bones.
• If you scratch certain itches, they just itch more.
• Many valuable things, including happiness and deep sleep, come to us only if we do not try hard for them."

If I could have one wish for the people I love, if I could suggest one resolution to take seriously to heart this year it would be this: resolve to live wisely in 2012. Plantinga admits that wisdom is both a gift from God and something that we are challenged to seek as precious treasure. My resolution is to take what measure I have been granted and use it to multiply my store. However, as I read the last item on Plantinga's list above, I discover another of the paradoxes of Christian living. Here is wisdom, "What do you have that you have not received?"