Proverbs 3:19–20 “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; 20 by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew.”

In the middle of Solomon’s laying out the implications of the Gospel Centered mind in chapter three, it is as though he stands up – unable to constrain himself – to tell his son how blessed this way of living is (vss. 13-18).  Then, in two follow up verses, he explains that God is a God of wisdom. He contemplates His own steps. He does not act arbitrarily or randomly – which is evident everywhere you look in creation. The point? The God of all blessedness, the One Whom IS blessedness itself – walks in wisdom. As made in His image, we get to walk that way too – above every other creature.

Animals, do not walk in wisdom, they live by instinct. That is not to say that certain species are not gifted with high levels of intelligence – they clearly are. But in the final analysis, they are not building nests on the basis of technological eco-forecasts. While certain behaviors are passed on from adults to offspring, that is not by means of relaying abstract thoughts through communication with complex speculations, verbal instruction and convincing arguments as humans do. Even animals that make and use rudimentary tools do not advance in such endeavors. Your dog may dream about chasing cats, but is hardly formulating opinions on the superiority of the canine over the feline in abstract ways – writing dissertations or blogging about it. They don’t have it in them. But we do. Because we were made in God’s image.

The upshot of Solomon’s remarks here is that they are remarkably tailored to the present day context in which we live. It is no happy coincidence that Solomon uses his appeal to creation to get his point across. And we need to listen to especially in our day.

Here is a call to keep always in view – that it is God who made this world in which we live – with purpose and wisdom, and that by His design it functions and exists. This is so we never cross over into existential despair. So we never fall into the fears of randomness. Never fail to see God is behind life itself, and that He remains sovereign and supreme as He moves all of history toward its final goal of all things summed up in Christ Jesus.

The knowledge that human existence is on a trajectory toward an eternal goal is vital to our living in hope and reality. The damnable horror that has sprung from a Godless, evolutionary view of man that makes him nothing more than a cosmic accident plunges the souls of men into a bottomless despair. Only the light of the Gospel as it reveals the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ can rescue us from that wretched abyss.