1 Kings 3:4-13 / Mark 6:30-34
We know that life is a continuous learning process.
This learning process is manifested in the quest for knowledge which can be attained through education and reading and research.
As it is, we are often measured by the quality of our knowledge, especially when it comes to a job requirement.
Yet knowledge does not stand alone.
Knowledge goes hand-in-hand with wisdom, and they complement each other.
To put it simply, knowledge is knowing the answer, wisdom is giving life to the answer.
In the 1st reading, when King Solomon asked for wisdom from God, it was not that he did not know how to rule. He had experienced advisers with him.
Rather he was asking God to make him a good king, a king who knows what God wants and to carry it out.
We need wisdom to see what is vital and necessary because we can get too absorbed with our busyness and get too focused on achievements.
In the gospel, even Jesus had to tell His apostles, who had just come back from successful missions and feeling high, to go off to a lonely place and rest and of course to pray.
In the spiritual sense, we need the wisdom to come to know the Lord whom we are working for instead of just doing the work of the Lord.
Wisdom is also necessary for self-knowledge and to get a good picture of ourselves.
I came across another version of the popular Serenity prayer and it goes like this:
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the people I cannot change,
the courage to face the one I can change,
and the wisdom to know it is me!