Job 28:11 · World English Bible
Job 28:11 Meaning He Binds the Streams That They Don’t
He binds the streams that they don’t trickle. The thing that is hidden he brings out to light.
What does Job 28:11 mean?
The mind loves to mine for wisdom as if it could be dug up and owned, and that confidence is its blind spot, forgetting who set the veins in the rock. Humility before a knowing that is not for sale is the cure, holding back one's own cleverness long enough to be taught.
From the Sufism reading below.
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The same verse, read by one tradition.
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The mind loves to mine for wisdom as if it could be dug up and owned, and that confidence is its blind spot, forgetting who set the veins in the rock. Humility before a knowing that is not for sale is the cure, holding back one's own cleverness long enough to be taught.
Every hidden thing is brought to light by the same hand that hid it. The dammed stream and the opened secret are one work, concealing so as to reveal, so what is buried is not lost but kept until He carries it into the day.
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Live Job 28:11 today
- Pick one thing today you are sure you understand, about your work, your family, your own habits, and hold it as a maybe for a few hours. Let yourself be wrong on paper before something forces it.
- In the next conversation where you already know the answer, ask one more question before you give it. The thing you were about to say will still be there, and you might learn why they see it differently.
- When the hidden thing surfaces, the bad news, the thing someone finally tells you, the problem that was there all along, resist the first explanation that comes to mind. What stayed buried for a while was kept, not lost, and it may be arriving now for a reason you cannot see yet.
What have I stopped asking about because I decided I already knew?
The same truth in other traditions
Tao Te Ching 8
Water takes the low place and gets everywhere by not forcing. Wisdom comes to whoever stays low enough to receive it, which is not the same as being clever enough to take it.
Zen · Shunryu Suzuki
Suzuki said the beginner's mind holds many possibilities and the expert's mind holds few. Certainty about what you already know is the exact thing that keeps the next thing out.
Pirkei Avot
The sages asked who is wise, and answered: the one who learns from everyone. Wisdom is not mined and owned, it is received, and only an unguarded person can receive it.
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