A choice of instructors

Life has given us two very effective teachers. Both are top-flight instructors, but neither comes cheap. While both are effective, both require something of us. We have to choose one or the other, and if we choose neither, the second will be chosen for us.

The teachers are Wisdom and Consequences.

We can learn a great deal from either teacher. I should warn you, however, of the huge difference in their instructional styles. While Wisdom will amaze and delight us with her lessons, Consequences will leave us breathless – and not in a good way. The truth is, Consequences is by far the tougher teacher of the two.

For one thing, Consequences’ enrollment cost and ongoing tuition are sky-high. Oh, she’ll teach us well, all right – but by the time we learn her lesson, her instruction may have cost us years. It may have cost us our marriage, our family, our job, our ministry, perhaps even our life. Consequences has a huge back-end cost.

Suppose you run full blast into a wall, and bang, you break your nose. What did you learn? Wall hard, nose soft; wall win, nose lose.
Good! You`re wiser now. What`s the lesoon?
Don`t run into walls that don`t move right along with you.
Congratulations. You`ve garnered a pearl of wisdom from a personal experience that included some suffering and pain.

If Consequences has a back-end price, Wisdom has a front-end price. It requires discipline, obedience, consistency, and above all else, time. Then it gladly pours on you its promised tremendous riches.

Do you want to know the biggest difference between Consequences and Wisdom? Wisdom teaches you the lesson before you make the mistake. On the other hand, consequences demand that you make the mistake first. Only then will it teach you the lesson. Wisdom puts up the fence at the top of the cliff; Consequences visits you in the hospital when you’re in traction… after they’ve scraped you up from the cliffs’ bottom.

(Fra boka "The Divine Mentor" av Wayne Cordeiro)