A Fountain of Life
A Fountain of Life
By Stephen Rankin
“The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, so that one may avoid the snares of death.” Proverbs 13:14
Across the years, I have benefitted tremendously from people who gave me their time, attention, and perspectives on life. As I ponder this proverb, several of them come to mind. They are among the wise, whose teaching has been a fountain of life to me.
It’s good to remember how godly wisdom most often comes to us. It comes through study, of course, and prayer, but perhaps most important, it comes through people. Embodied wisdom, the wisdom of Christ in real flesh and blood relationships. This part of life seems to be slipping away in our digitized world.
So, as a testimony, I want to mention two of the wise (apart from my parents) who for me have been a fountain of life. Time has stretched the distance between us (one is in heaven) but their impact on me remains. Their names will mean nothing to you, but I hope my mentioning them sparks your own thoughts about the wise in your life and may the memory of them provoke you to praise God’s goodness.
For me, Betty Jo Banks comes to mind first. While I was in high school, she gathered about thirty of us teenagers from several rural Kansas communities and formed a Christian singing group, called The Challengers. Betty Jo was “Big Momma” to us. With the help of our parents who hauled us all over the place, she organized trips to area churches, where we sang and shared brief testimonies. Under her guidance, we learned to be a fellowship, a real community of followers of Christ. She prayed and taught us to pray. She spoke from the heart and taught us to do likewise. She praised us and chastised us (ever so gently) when we needed it. She demonstrated patience, firmness, and steadiness. We watched her handle unexpected circumstances, like a car breaking down on the way to a concert or an unplanned gap in the program because someone was sick. By watching her, we learned how to live.
Jim Cook served as the Campus Director for our Campus Crusade group while I was in college. I was blessed to be in one of his small groups, so I got to know him well. He just seemed to know the right things to say, the perfect questions to ask. He candidly admitted when he didn’t know the answer to one of my questions. That was important, too. I remember asking him about politics. As a college student, I had come to realize that I knew virtually nothing and wanted to grow. It was a time of deep societal division and disenchantment after President Nixon’s resignation. Loud voices alternatively excoriated and praised President Ford’s pardon of his disgraced predecessor. I didn’t know what to think, so I asked Jim. He helped me think. I learned a little bit about “thinking Christianly” about important public matters.
Perhaps the most massive and troubling social change of the past thirty years has been the creation of digital technology that allegedly “connects” people but more often than not isolates us. By numerous experts’ analysis, it has contributed to significant loneliness. Various studies show that in the neighborhood of 2/3 of youth and young adults around the world(!) say that loneliness is a significant problem for them. One person whose research I follow is Dr. Jean Twenge. She has written about the year 2012 as a benchmark for the acceleration of a number of problems for teens, like loneliness, related to the internet and social media. That’s the year the first smartphones hit the market.
The dramatic increase in reports of loneliness, coupled with the dominance of digital technology in daily life, prompted my thinking about where people go to find wisdom. It has become less and less the case that wisdom is shared face-to-face.
One of the sources that keeps data on internet usage shows that currently there are in the neighborhood of 55,000 active Apple podcasts dedicated to what we would call “self-help.” That’s just Apple. It doesn’t include Spotify or YouTube. Think of all the self-help (or, perhaps more precisely, self-improvement) topics like time management, career development, relationship fixes or enhancements, physical health, and personal emotional or psychological help, just to name a few. The internet is flooded with podcasts on these subjects and many more.
I have a hunch that, in our individualistic and self-conscious age, more people use online sources like these podcasts for life-guidance, for wisdom, rather than talking with an actual in-the-flesh person. To be clear, I have in mind the more common life challenges that self-help resources address, not the sorts of things that might need counseling or therapy. The perceived anonymity of the online environment tempts people to think that they can find the wisdom they need without having to let anyone know they might be struggling with something.
The internet is a weird place, where self-exposure and anonymity co-exist in perverse ways. It reminds me of a notable aspect of my experience in higher education. College students have become masters at posing for the camera, at looking happy and on top of things. They feel enormous pressure to live up to the hype of “the college experience” and to demonstrate success, so they learn how to look “on” all the time, even when they’re riddled with anxiety and self-doubt.
Paradoxically, young people also remind us of the truth of our proverb. Once they find a trustworthy, humble, transparent, wise adult, they come seeking wisdom.
I dream of congregations where the wise are identified and people know them to be “a fountain of life.” And don’t sell yourself short on having wisdom to share. If you’re an older Christian (like I am), reach out to the youth in your church or social group. Get to know them. Learn about their likes and dislikes, their joys, and worries. Invite that young couple with the new baby out for a meal or to your home. If it helps, invite more than one couple. Make it a little group (but keep the preparation manageable), so that no one feels singled out or responsible to carry the load for a conversation.
You don’t need special training to be among the wise. You don’t have to have it all together. You need firm faith in Christ, a humble, teachable heart, a love for other people, and the courage to share your life with someone. That’s it.
I am so thankful for people who shared their life with me, people like Betty Jo Banks and Jim Cook. I hope you can name at least a handful of people who have been wisdom for you. And I hope, further, that we can take this proverb more deeply into our hearts. The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life. If ever there was a time when people needed this wisdom, the time is now.
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