Ignorance keeps us from doing many good things. We don’t know what we don’t know and merely trying harder only keeps us stuck. We must take the time necessary to gain the knowledge needed to navigate our life and relationships successfully. But wisdom comes by putting these things into practice and not merely knowing about them.
To be sure, there’s a time to pause and simply learn what we don’t know. But it’s also tempting to hide behind our ignorance and what we feel we don’t yet know. We feel like we can act once we know enough, but we always feel like there’s one more thing we need to learn. As such, we effectively remain impotent – constantly gaining new knowledge but never putting anything into practice.
Wisdom is the ability to rightly apply the things we learn. And because maturity requires our growth in wisdom, it means we must also be willing to fully embody the knowledge we gain.
Of course, humility reminds us we don’t know everything, and to humbly maintain a posture of a student always willing to learn more. At the same time, we can take a baby step toward applying what we do know.
For instance, our ability to be kind and patient with those in our life doesn’t require a complete reading of the Bible or for us to fully understand the weighty theological issues presented. We can start our practice of love today even as we continue to learn more about God and his kingdom.
Likewise, we can commit to doing what’s right today even before we fully understand why we haven’t been doing it this way all along. There’s a place for understanding our past and how wounds have impacted us. But much of this we will be doing for the rest of our life. In the meantime, we still have the responsibility to put into practice the right things we know to do.
In the end, continue to learn and gain knowledge in every area of your life. This is truly empowering. But don’t neglect to put into practice what you’re learning along the way. This is the mark of wisdom and maturity.
