I love those who love me,
And those who seek me diligently find me.
Proverbs 8:17
You might read words like this and assume these are the words of God. It obviously does track with what God says to us in other places, but the words here are not words attributed to God, but instead a personification of wisdom. This is wisdom speaking. This whole chapter gives us great insight into the significance of spiritual or true wisdom.
Let’s look at line one from verse 17. I love those who love me. You pursue and interact with what you love. If you love a person, you invest time and energy into them. You want to be around them and spend time with them. If they love you, they do the same in return. I think using the literary tool of personification helps paint this picture of our interaction with wisdom. If we desire to be wise, then we pursue this wisdom and the wisdom we find in-turn blesses our lives in many ways. We benefit from our relationship with wisdom. This wisdom ultimately brings about our life as we see at the end of this chapter.
Then in the last line of this verse we are given some very critical information about this wisdom we all need. And those who seek me diligently find me. This wisdom is found. You are not born with it. It is not something that some people just have, and others don’t. No, it is not like that. Most importantly to understand, because I think this is something that people frequently get hung up on, wisdom is not something that can be given to you. I cannot depend on somebody else for true wisdom. The reason is because wisdom is found by seekers. You don’t just happen upon wisdom, and it isn’t transferred from others. It is sought and it is found.
You must value and desire it if you want to possess it, because only those who personally seek it will find it. It is those people who then benefit from their relationship with wisdom.
From Your Fellow Servant,
Steven McFadden
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