Pearls of wisdom: what a kick in the teeth

I had a wisdom tooth extracted this morning and I can’t say it was particularly pleasant. At one point it felt as though the dentist was unscrewing a section of my brain and hoiking it out through my whimpering jaw.

I’m not a brave person; in fact the thought of large needles jabbing into my gums and a pair of angry looking pliers approaching my pearly whites filled me with abject horror. Worst of all though, when I went to bed last night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t have a great deal of wisdom to spare.

Now before you stop me, I’m aware that wisdom teeth aren’t actually the source of human knowledge. But it did get me thinking about where wisdom comes from, and if it’s possible to get a top up.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of wisdom-related information in the Bible.

The first thing I learnt was that God is exceedingly wise: “Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding [wisdom] is infinite” (Psalm 147:5).

Secondly, we can access this wisdom ourselves: “For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6).

What a relief! Out of my mouth came a rather large wisdom tooth, leaving a large, tender void. But out of God’s mouth comes true wisdom; knowledge and understanding that we can read about, hear and experience for ourselves. And when it leaves his mouth, there is no void; His wisdom is infinite, so it never runs out.

Most comfortingly, God’s wisdom isn’t like ours. He doesn’t make mistakes or falter over decisions; His common sense never holds him back. I, for one, consider that a huge relief.

Because although I’ve still got three wisdom teeth in reserve, I’m fully aware that my knowledge, judgment and powers of discernment are fatally flawed. A whole jaw full of them couldn’t stop me from putting both feet in my mouth on a daily basis.

So when my head hits the pillow tonight, there will be no need to worry about where my wisdom will come from. I’ll simply be waiting for the tooth fairy to leave me a large deposit in place of my precious – and freakishly large – bit of back tooth.

I know what you’re thinking… I definitely need to wise up if I'm expecting that to happen!

Read more from Joy in the next issue of Sorted magazine.