“Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding.”

To understand something, you have to work at it. Sure, sometimes it comes easy and we will understand immediately, but in other cases to really understand all that there is, we have to dig to comprehend the whole subject and most importantly, the downstream ramifications of what may or may not happen from what is in front of us. I am amazed with people who can grasp something quickly and then apply that new found understanding to what they have in front of them now and for the future. To really understand a topic, a problem, a challenge or an issue, I think it takes the ability to look at something like you are looking through a prism. What goes in as white light ends up on the wall as many different colors. This is why to understand fully we have to be willing to take the time, energy and effort to listen intently, not judge on face value and to be self-aware that our own filters don’t impeded or taint what is really going on. It feels like that we get this opportunity all day long, every day at our jobs. I worked on a project right that required the filtering of lots of different people’s points of view to get to the heart of the matter, or to get to true understanding of the issues and the challenge. A casual observation would certainly yield a different result than what comes from digging in and giving extra time and attention. We should always seek to find the true understanding in whatever we do as usually much more depends on it than appears, like people’s feelings, fragile egos, ulterior motives, etc.

There is another reason to try and understand understanding. We read this in Proverbs; “Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding.” Having true understanding answers many things for us and when we have answers we find a peace and within that peace can then flow joy. It’s hard to be joyful at times of consternation or turmoil. Today, if you are staring down a problem or challenge then do the extra work necessary to gain full understanding. Once you are there, it can only be much, much better than it is now.

Reference: Proverbs 3:13 (New Living Translation)