Creation by wisdom

“The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens;”
-Proverbs 3:19

I had a friend point this verse out to me a year or so ago, and ever since it has not ceased to stun me. The implications of it make my mind quake with the possibilities.

By wisdom He founded the earth. He measured every curve, every orbit, every weight, and every pull, set this place upon a divinely ordained path, perfectly set for His creation. Every mountain He built, without error, down to every electron that spins within an atom. The weight and makeup of the air He created, flawlessly. It is His hand that guides history, turning everything toward the good for His children. He draws people to Him, even when their entire beings seek rebellion. Each person He knows from the womb and before, and He knows each hair on a man’s head. He provides for the birds and causes the flowers to bloom. All of this in magnificent balance He controls: all for His glory.

I am listening to Wagner as I write this, and I am amazed at how much musical understand it takes to compose a prelude as he did. The understanding of tone, of rhythm, and emotion. Where to swell and where to hold back. How to draw a heart into a piece of music.

This particular prelude is about eight minutes long (from the third act of Tristan und Isolde). In these eight minutes Wagner has done something that I have not the understanding to do. I have studied music my whole life, and I cannot compose like this. It is wondrous. And yet Wagner merely holds an orchestra together for eight minutes. How much greater still is He who holds all of history together for all of eternity!

I wonder how much wisdom I really bring to my own life. Am I coming to my marriage in wisdom, or in something else? What about my friendships? My job? I can hardly hold my own life together, I fear. How much greater is He who holds together even the cells in my body?

It’s strange how we follow our own wisdom in life, that same wisdom that has so often failed us. It’s strange that my default mode is to fix it myself instead of turning to God. In this, perhaps, I show how little wisdom I truly have.

By wisdom God created all that there is, and by wisdom He created me too. Perhaps the most wondrous thing of all is that He still loves me. He still hears me. He still speaks to me.

He died for me.

This verse is a pun. I’ve been reading it closely for a year, and I only now just got it. We’ve been talking a lot lately about how Wisdom, as depicted in this section of Proverbs, is a symbol for Jesus. So when it says that God founded the world by wisdom, it means that literally, but it also means that God founded the world by Jesus. And that’s exactly what we find is true in Hebrews 1:2: “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”

It was through Jesus that the world was created, and it is also Jesus that we can be saved. In my own wisdom, I have ruined nearly everything I’ve touched. I have no right to claim anything from God. And yet He has given me the right to be His adopted son through Jesus. How are we so stubborn as to not make Him to focus of our every breath? How is it we think we know better than Him? Does it not make sense to seek His way in our every turn?

By wisdom God founded the earth. By love He chased me, even into death. By grace He gives me life. By awe, wonder, and love I am brought time after time to Him.