Wisdom...are you building yours?

No Success Without Wisdom by Charles R. Swindoll

Wisdom has the advantage of giving success. 
---Ecclesiastes 10:10

10:10 If an iron axhead is blunt and a workman does not sharpen its edge, he must exert a great deal of effort; so wisdom has the advantage of giving success. 

(From the NET Bible, and excellent online version of scripture with copious notes and references...Access the Net Bible here.)

I don't know of a hotter subject today than success. Magazine articles, books, seminars, and sermons promote it. 

But success is seldom linked with wisdom. Chances are good that if we would pick up last Sunday's paper and read it through, we'd come across twenty or more references to success, yet find nothing added regarding wisdom. 

In today's hype about success, wisdom is conspicuous by its absence. Outside of biblical literature and biblically based books, we hardly even come across the word. . . .

[Wisdom] may not give us great popularity and wealth and it may not mean that we will be the most respected in our field or that we will have the most significant voice in the company, but ultimately, as God gauges it, we will be successful.

Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Wisdom for the Way (Nashville: J. Countryman, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.