No pressure, no diamonds. No digging, no gold. No challenges, no wisdom. It’s as obvious as that.
We’ve been reminded by Job that earth’s treasures must go through a process to become valuable to us. First, they must be sought for and discovered. Then, through grueling effort, they must be brought to the surface from the depths. In doing this, they are taken out of the darkness to glisten in the light. And still the ore must be smelted, the jewels cut and polished. So now he asks, “But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?” (Job 28:12). Where can we sink a shaft to find it? What river can we pan to discover it? Well, the first problem is this: men have a lust for gold and women delight in diamonds, but as far as wisdom is concerned, “Man does not know its value” (v 13). Who is even looking for it? And if you do go exploring, you’ll see it isn’t easy to find. “The deep says, ‘It is not in me’; and the sea says, ‘It is not with me’” (v 14). It’s so rare that the finest gold from Ophir or “the topaz of Ethiopia” (vv 16, 19) are not valuable enough to offer in trade. And, he says, don’t even “mention…coral or quartz” (v 18). You’d be laughed out of the market. So before he seeks to answer his own question (since his friends seem to have shown no interest in trying), let’s pause and ask ourselves a few questions. What is wisdom? It has been described as “the practical ability to live life skillfully,” and especially to live a godly life in an ungodly world. Simply put, it is life lived as God meant it. How precious is wisdom to you? How deep will you dig for it, or are you happy to keep life superficial? Are you willing to go through periods of darkness to find such treasure in God’s “unfathomable mines,” as William Cowper called them? “Happy is the man who finds wisdom” (Prov 3:13).