In his bestselling book, Atomic Habits, James Clear tells the story of Laszlo Polgar, who had the mantra: “A genius is not born but is educated and trained.” He and his wife Klara decided to test this theory on their own children by trying to raise them to become chess prodigies.
They filled their house with chess books and pictures of famous chess players. Their children played against each other constantly and competed in the best tournaments they could find. They did everything they could to encourage their kids to become the best chess players in the world.
And it worked! Susan, their oldest, began playing when she was four years old, and within six months she was defeating adults. Sofia, the middle child, was a world champion by age fourteen, and a few years later, she became a grandmaster.
Judit, the youngest, was the best of all. By the time she was five, she could beat her father. When she was fifteen, she became the youngest grandmaster of all time, and for twenty-seven years, she was the best female chess player in the world.
Lazlo and Klara knew that those closest to us have an enormous amount of power to influence who we become.
But that doesn’t always yield a positive result. Those closest to you can also bring you down. Your friend’s negativity can make you a more critical person. A foolish business partner can bring your hard work to an end overnight.
Your friends can even influence your physical health. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine tracked 12,000 people for 32 years and found that “a person’s chances of becoming obese increased by 57% if he or she had a friend who became obese.”
Proverbs 13:20 tells us, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” If you want to become wise, walk with the wise. So how do we do that?
Walk Continually With The Wise
I live in New York City, and part of what makes living here inspiring is being around so many diverse and innovative people.
Edward Glaeser writes in Triumph of the City, “Ideas flow readily from person to person in the dense corridors of Bangalore and London, and people are willing to put up with high urban prices just to be around talented people, some of whose knowledge will rub off.”
Many of us go to college for a similar reason. We pay to learn from experts in our field of study. If you want to become wise, spend time with people who are wise.
And this principle applies to all areas of life. We should ask to lunch people who have achieved the goals we have for our career. We should spend time with couples whose marriages we admire. But when the book of Proverbs talks about wisdom, first and foremost, it means following God.
Proverbs 1:17 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” The wise person is the one who reveres God. Do you have friends in your life who encourage you in your walk with God?
Walk Intentionally With The Wise
Last year, Justin Sun, the founder of the cryptocurrency company Tron, paid almost $4.6 million to have lunch with Warren Buffet. Granted, it was to benefit charity, but Buffet has been doing these auctions for 20 years now, and still every year, there are people interested in paying a large sum of money to spend a small amount of time with him and ask him for advice.
Spending the right kind of time with wise people is just as important as spending consistent time with them. If you want to become wise, you need to develop relationships with wise men and women whom you can go to for advice when you’re wrestling with questions about your career, a relationship, or your faith.
It’s also important to invite a close friend to speak truth into your life. Proverbs 15:31 says, “The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise.”
“The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise.” (Proverbs 15:31)
One of the reasons some people pay for an exercise class or a trainer is that then they are not doing it on their own. The coach or instructor will push them to do one more set or run just a little bit faster. We need friends who know us and who can encourage us in our walk with God, especially when we veer off track.
I have friends who hold me accountable, but the person who knows me the best by far is my wife. It’s important that I welcome her rebuke when I’m impatient, unkind, or selfish.
Why Is It So Hard?
The concept is simple: Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise. It’s easy to understand. But why is it so hard to do? Why do we still make bad decisions or say foolish things?
And this is where Christianity is different than secular advice. If you strive to walk with the wise for the rest of your life, you’re going to die a lot wiser than you are today. But you’re still not going to be some perfect human being. You’re still going to make mistakes. You’re still going to believe and say foolish things.
Even if you endeavor to avoid the companionship of fools, we still live in a world where other people’s foolishness affects us. COVID-19 has made it clear how interdependent we are. The killing of George Floyd is a tragic reminder of unjust suffering.
Books like Atomic Habits can give us great advice on how to live wisely, but they don’t tell us why we can’t, through hard work and dedication, just become perfect. Why can’t we just apply these simple principles and become completely wise? What is it that always seems to hold us back?
Christianity answers this deeper, more foundational question. It says the reason we always struggle is that our sins have corrupted our very nature.
Our desires are misplaced and short-sighted. Instead of loving the God who offers us every good thing, we seek our own selfish ends. Adam and Eve walked with God in paradise with everything they could ever want, but as soon as the serpent offered them the fruit from the one tree God told them not to eat from, they turned their back on him.
Sin has deprived us of our ability to live wisely. God shows us the path of wisdom, but so often, we feel pulled in another direction. God came down to us as wisdom incarnate (Colossians 2:3) and walked among us. But even the apostle Peter, who walked with Jesus every day for three years, still denied that he even knew him when Jesus was arrested.
Instead of walking with the wise, we make ourselves the companion of fools when we go along with the world and betray the God who loves us. And for that, we deserve to suffer harm.
But here’s the good news of Christianity: Jesus Christ, wisdom himself, in perfect communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit, willingly became the companion of fools like you and I and suffered the harm we deserve, that we might walk with him in newness of life (Romans 6:4). And in that new life, the Spirit of Christ himself dwells within us and reverses the corruption of sin (Romans 8:9).
Our great hope is that one day we will be made perfect (Hebrews 12:23). But it won’t be to our credit. We’ll be made perfect in the day when God conforms us into the image of his Son, and we walk with him again in paradise.