Who is the smartest person you know? Maybe she can figure out every math problem and always gets straight As. Do you know someone who can fix just about everything? Maybe he repairs a broken fan in the morning, unclogs a sink in the afternoon, and builds a treehouse before the sun sets. Wisdom is something more than knowing a lot of information or figuring out how to make things work. Wisdom is understanding how the world works and how God wants us to live in it. The opposite of wisdom is foolishness. Left to ourselves, we wouldn’t live wisely. We would just do whatever we wanted to do! How foolish. But God is gracious. He gives us parents and pastors and teachers to teach us his wisdom. And he gives us a book to teach us how we ought to live.

That book is Proverbs! There are thirty-one chapters in Proverbs. Read a chapter a day to keep foolishness away! Proverbs teaches us that it is wise to listen to our parents, make the right friends, work hard, be honest and generous, and speak kindly to others. But Proverbs doesn’t just tell us some wise ways to live. It also tells us the secret to being wise. It says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10). Fear of the Lord? Wait a minute, we get wisdom by being afraid of God? Afraid like we would be if we were alone in a dark room or if a pit bull were charging us? No, that’s not what the fear of God means.

To fear God means that we understand how powerful God is—more powerful and amazing than anything in the world. Remember, he spoke the whole world into existence. That’s power! He is the King and he rules everything. So we should never think “Who cares?” about what God says. We should fear him. We should obey him. We should trust him. It is a good fear, the kind of fear that keeps us wise—since we are looking to our wise God.