Today we will read Ecclesiastes 9: 13-18:

13 I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. 14 There was a little city with few people in it. A great king came against it and besieged it, building great siegeworks against it. 15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. 16 So I said, “Wisdom is better than might; yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heeded.”

17 The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
    than the shouting of a ruler among fools.
18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
    but one bungler destroys much good.

I really like this illustration that the Teacher gives. The poor wise man gives the wisdom that saves the down but he is not remembered.  It is the powerful, or the rich, or the king, who gets the attention. But they are not the ones who were the wise ones. They just got the attention. 

I think there is a powerful, powerful lesson for us to learn there.  Where are we looking for wisdom?  Where are we looking for God’s voice?  The place we look may not be the place we need to look. The truth we seek may be found somewhere else.  

Think of when Samuel anointed King David in 1 Samuel 16.  He went there looking for a king and all of David’s brothers looked the part, just like Saul did before. But they were not the ones chosen by God. It was David, the youngest, the unsuspected, who was the one who God had chosen. 

 If Samuel had been looking with human eyes, he would have missed that movement of God.  But he was looking and listening to God. So he saw, and he heard. And the new King, who would be the father of the Teacher, was anointed. 

Today, where are you looking? Who are you looking to? Are you paying attention? Are you truly looking and listening for God’s wisdom, or are you simply looking to the usual suspects? Today we see that God may speak through people we would never suspect.  May we always be on the lookout.  

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