Proverbs 8:9
"They are all straightforward to him who understands and right to those who find knowledge."
Here we hear about the nature of wisdom. It is straightforward to those who have understanding. In other words, what sounds wise to a person who has understanding will not sound wise or straightforward to those who don't have understanding. If a person does not see relational connections between people, activities, and things, then they will think that the wise choice is a convoluted mess and will not make it.
The person who understands how people live their lives and how things really work will understand that in order to get to point A, sometimes you need to move in the direction of point Q. This type of thinking makes no sense to the person who does not realize that there are connections between people.
What is fascinating here is that the people who hear about wisdom, but do not have understanding, will not get it. Even if they are given the wise answer, they will not see it as the answer. How many times have I seen this! The person who cannot see that taking any job in order to have a track record will lead to a better job. No, they want the high-paying job right now or they will not work at all. The person who must apologize for their actions when they were only five percent wrong in order to begin to thaw the relationship and allow the other person to apologize for their five percent. The employee, who refuses to do things the boss' way because they don't like that way, then cannot understand why they are not promoted. The person who always talks about themselves and what they think, without asking about other peoples’ lives, wonders why they have no friends ("I want them to be my friend so they have to know about me").
As a pastor and counselor, I have told people what the wise choice is in all types of situations: teen to parent; student to teacher; employee to employer; employer to employee; pastor to church. Yet, if they do not understand that life is an incredibly complex arrangement of relationships, they will not do the wise thing they have been told, because they just don't get it. Some people cannot understand that the best way to catch a fish is to go to where the fish is going, not to where the fish is. Some people cannot understand that the shortest distance between two points relationally is not necessarily a straight line. This is what this proverb is talking about.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz