God Motivation and Eating Well

    Take my instruction instead of silver,
        and knowledge rather than choice gold,
    for wisdom is better than jewels,
        and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.
(Proverbs 8:10-11)

Each day I'm faced with decisions of what I'll run after.  Now, to be sure, nobody is holding up before my nose right now a bag of silver, pot of gold, or chest of jewels.  Whether or not to grab for those exact things has never been a choice I've needed to make.  But there is a certain amount of energy and time that I've been given in each new day.  And there are all around me miniature adventures that I could jump into and explore, opportunities that I might invest in.  Even at this moment, I'm using the internet to type out these thoughts, a world in and of itself that can take me to any and all kinds of places.  And in this city there is merchandise galore.  I could take the day and spend myself entirely on the kind of substances described above, whether in the buying of them, the hungering after them, or engrossing myself in them.  And at the end of the day, I'd be empty, either needing to change course the following day or trying to fill up once again on the same pursuits and investments.  The things representing silver, gold, and jewels don't enrich in the ways that instruction, knowledge, and wisdom do.  The contrast is so great in fact that we're told there isn't even a comparison between what we can conceive in our minds (or desire) and what we can have through wisdom specifically: all that you may desire cannot compare with her.

I think this concept is one of those things like many truths that you either hear and identify with or just entirely disregard.  I don't mean that anyone is practicing the pursuit of the right things perfectly but simply that it clicks in your mind if you've had a taste.  It's a bit like that feeling when you're on a health kick and eating right--you feel good.  But then you eat some garbage that "hits the spot" in the moment but makes you feel like the trash it was later on.  You go to the fridge the next time for a snack and need that morsel that's just right, that thing that's good at the time and doesn't bring regrets later.  That's what getting a taste for instruction, wisdom, and knowledge is like.  It's good...and if you leave it for a season, you're miserable until you come back.  It's good because God made it to be so and those substances lead us to Him since they come from Him.  Pursuing them is part of God motivation.  Eat well today.