You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. John 15:14-17.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Psalm 73:24. 

Our chapter, Job 32, takes a change. Job and his 3 friends have stopped speaking. They have no more words. A new person enters. Elihu has been listening to all of the conversations and he is younger than Job and his friends. He will speak through to the end of chapter 37. He reminds me of me at a younger age when I was bursting to speak with all the energy the not-aged have. I am young in years, and you are old; that is why I was fearful, not daring to tell you what I know. I thought, ‘Age should speak; advanced years should teach wisdom.’ But it is the spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty, that gives them understanding. It is not only the old who are wise, not only the aged who understand what is right. v. 6-9. I know as one who is 70 years old and yet I can marvel at what I don’t know and I can be heartened in the energy of those younger. But the question remains. What is wisdom? Do we today search for wisdom as Job and his friends are searching in conversation with one another? Elihu goes on…Do not say, ‘We have found wisdom; let God, and not man, refute him.’ v. 13. I read this chapter a second time because it’s so short. In the margin for this verse after wisdom is a notation to Jeremiah 9:23: This is what the Lord says: Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast in their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight, declares the Lord. 

When I went to God in prayer after my reading this morning, I saw a green path that was enclosed in a cavernous area and a beautiful light was shining down onto that green path in the distance. That path and light stayed with me as I prayed. I couldn’t help but think about God sharing with us in Scripture words that lead us to Him. Think of all the words humanity has been bombarded with, all the theories and ideologies through time. Where in all of that is wisdom to be found? In the beginning. In the beginning God created…Genesis 1:1…In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5. And what does Jesus, our Lord and the Word made flesh for us, say to us who choose life illuminated by God’s truth and Love? You are my friends. He has made known to us the Father. If we choose we can be with God – Father, Son, Spirit – always…even now. God with us guiding us to His beautiful truth illuminating His love for all mankind. True wisdom we can lean into today and rejoice in for eternity with our God who loves us faithfully. Wisdom for me today is trusting God my Creator. He tells me to be fully with Him now as He guides me forward with Him. I trust Him. Always.