¹⁰Hear, my son, and accept my sayings and the years of your life will be many. ¹¹I have directed you in the way of wisdom; I have led you in upright paths. ¹²When you walk, your steps will not be impeded; and if you run, you will not stumble. ¹³Take hold of instruction; do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life.

The mythical fountain of youth that is said to restore youth to anyone who drinks from it has captured the aspirations of philosophers as early as Herodotus in the fifth century B.C. In the Age of Exploration, adventurers like Ponce de Leon searched for it (sixteenth century A.D.) The never-ending pursuit of staving off old age can be seen in our present-day focus on cosmetics, health, and exercise. But Solomon, in his wisdom, gives a better way of extending life and making it more fulfilling; learning wisdom for life carries a promise that “the years of your life will be many.”

How does wisdom result in longer life? It leads us in “upright paths,” not self-destructive ways. For example, a person who heeds the wisdom of obeying signs that say, “Danger, keep out,” will live longer than if he foolishly ignores such warnings. The person walking wisely will not have his steps “impeded,” nor will he stumble through life carelessly. Chapters 10-31 of the book of Proverbs flesh out this principle with a multitude of examples.

Scripture does not guarantee that a wise person will live longer than a foolish person in every case; a sober observation of reality verifies this. However, our passage tells us a person will extend his life by living wisely rather than foolishly. This is not a comparison of one person to another but a comparison of a person between his two choices in life: living wisely or foolishly.

Proverbs, by their nature, are “general” truths, not hard-and-fast, woodenly strict statements. A wise person might be run over by a truck because of another person’s foolishness. But the person who learned the childhood lesson of looking both ways before crossing the street, and who looks at various factors, including the dangers of the foolish truck driver will tend to live longer than the person who didn’t.

The question is this: How do we respond to wisdom’s teaching? Notice the action verbs in this passage: accept and take hold. Just knowing wisdom is not enough; we must act in wisdom and fully embrace it. We need to be all-in with it. Wisdom will guard and extend our lives; it will direct us and lead us. We would be completely irrational and foolish to reject wisdom. And that is what foolishness is, rejecting wisdom. We would rather listen to and act in wisdom, than go through life continually shooting ourselves in the foot.

Lord, help me reject the irrationality of foolishness and embrace wisdom.