Every family has its traditions. My family, for example, opens Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve after reading the nativity story in the Gospel of Luke. My wife’s family opens their gifts on Christmas morning after consuming spicy pork tacos. I like being married because it expands my traditions: both Christmas Eve and Christmas Morn, both spiritual and spicy.

 

Aside from such family traditions, our culture is not tradition friendly. We constantly look for products that are “new and improved” rather than “tried and true.” We want to be fashionable, trendy, and cutting edge, not unfashionable, behind the times, and dull. In business circles, tradition is openly mocked. Management consultants like to say, “Insanity is doing the same things over and over but expecting different results.”

 

Now, I’ll grant you that life includes plenty of room for the new and improved. I prefer my Dell laptop to the Brother word processor I used in college, and both are superior to typing a term paper on an IBM Selectric typewriter or writing it out longhand. When it comes to things, new and improved is often better. (Not always, however! Remember “New Coke”?)

 

But when it comes to life, tried and true has its advantages. We see this on display in Proverbs 4:1-9, in which a father passes on his father’s advice to his own son:

 

Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction;

pay attention and gain understanding.

I give you sound learning,

so do not forsake my teaching.

When I was a boy in my father’s house,

still tender, and an only child of my mother,

he taught me and said…

 

Here, tradition means the passing on of wisdom from one generation to the next, from father to son, from grandfather to grandson. And what does that wisdom consist of? More wisdom!

 

Lay hold of my words with all your heart;

keep my commands and you will live.

Get wisdom, get understanding;

do not forget my words or swerve from them.

 

In these verses, wisdom is not a given, it is an acquisition. We cannot assume that are wise right now, or that having acquired wisdom, we will be wise for the rest of our lives. (Remember Solomon!) Rather, we must constantly “lay hold of it” and “get it.” We must neither “forget” it or “swerve” from it.

 

Wisdom is like your wife. A man expends time, talent, and treasure to woo a woman, but once he’s married her, the flowers, cards, and romance disappear. If you want a wife to love you, keep after her. And keep after wisdom too.

 

 Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you;

Love her, and she will watch over you.

Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.

Though it cost all you have, get understanding.

Esteem her, and she will exalt you;

embrace her, and she will honor you.

She will set a garland of grace on your head

and present you with a crown of splendor.

 

Like marriage, the romance of wisdom is pursuit.