Wisdom is a treasure greater than gold, silver, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds and any other precious gem.  That tenet is often found throughout the Proverbs in various places.  But it also shows up in Job.

I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to describe the profound way Job reveals the path to wisdom, but I just can’t improve on his technicolor words.

Miners penetrate the earth’s darkness,
searching the roots of the mountains for ore,
digging away in the suffocating darkness.
Far from civilization, far from the traffic,
they cut a shaft,
and are lowered into it by ropes.

Miners hammer away at the rock,
they uproot the mountains.
They tunnel through the rock
and find all kinds of beautiful gems.
They discover the origins of rivers,
and bring earth’s secrets to light.

All those secrets…all those beautiful gems…yet they are hidden away.  In fact, Job reminds us, the animals on the surface of the earth don’t even know they exist!

In the same way, wisdom is hidden away from us.  In order to find it, we have to look for it the right place.

^20-22 “So where does Wisdom come from?
And where does Insight live?
It can’t be found by looking, no matter
how deep you dig, no matter how high you fly.
If you search through the graveyard and question the dead,
they say, ‘We’ve only heard rumors of it.’

^23-28 “God alone knows the way to Wisdom,
he knows the exact place to find it.
He knows where everything is on earth,
he sees everything under heaven.

He focused on Wisdom,
made sure it was all set and tested and ready.
Then he addressed the human race: ‘Here it is!
Fear-of-the-Lord—that’s Wisdom,
and Insight means shunning evil.'”

Fear of the Lord is Wisdom.

It really struck me today as I read those words that I am clueless to the richness of God’s full wisdom.  Like the deer that never knows about the rivers that run deep through the earth at its feet, there are aspects of God’s wisdom of which I am totally unaware.  I can only begin to fathom wisdom when I cultivate my relationship with Him.  When I dig deeply into the Words of God, into worship, and into prayers as diligently as the miners who chip and chisel gems out of the rocky underside of the earth, I find golden treasures of wisdom, inch by glimmering inch.