when you search for truth for your swirling heart and find these words, "The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding." and those words bring to mind other words that have spun you in circles for months now, coursing over and over trying to find the sense, "You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich. Also buy white garments from me so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see. I correct and discipline everyone I love. So be diligent and turn from your indifference. Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends." and and you wonder about this wisdom thing costing everything; how is that even possible, to pay for wisdom? to buy gold from God?
and when you stand around after church on the first day meeting in the new building with guys who gave maybe hundreds of hours to see this project find completion and they say i am tired, but it is worth it and it was hard, but the good kind of hard that makes life good, and then when you drive to that vineyard shaded by rows of long-standing trees with friends who walk in commitments even though days and years and choices tried to knock them by the wayside, and they vow to continue to celebrate God's goodness and faithfulness and vow again to hold to i do till death. these are costly.
because throwing a party just to celebrate God and their community is extravagant, and publicly, vulnerably reminding themselves about commitments is rare, and volunteering all of their free time to hang impossible lights in a new church for two solid weeks seems lavish. and costly.
but then, so is wisdom.
