What Amazon Kindle’s most highlighted passage reveals about us

According to Amazon, the most highlighted passage in all books read on Kindle (as of November 2014)—highlighted almost twice as often as any other passage—is from the second volume of The Hunger Games: "Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them.”

Photo by Mark Turnauckas (http://bit.ly/2uiQ7lG)

The Hunger Games is a young adult novel and series, so this might be a generational thing, but I think it speaks beyond the younger generation. 

For instance, my 87-year-old mom uses of a variation of this quite often when working on her computer. 

I remember hearing a Manhattan pastor say this about how he felt after 911. 

And for all of us, we often find ourselves unequipped to face the challenges that come with the speed of change, innovation and new information. 

But it’s not just about change and the speed of information. We also face more and more choices in our world. Think of choosing a career or a major in a world where skills and degrees pursued for years in school become obsolete so quickly. 

With the speed of change, I’ve encouraged our staff to never stop learning. But constant learning and gaining more information is inadequate to meet today’s challenges. It’s not enough. Something more is needed. 

That something more is wisdom. 

Wisdom will seek out knowledge—it’s not wise to make decisions without sufficient information. A wise person is a constant learner.

Wisdom will rightly apply information so that better decisions can be made. 

Wisdom will also know when there's enough information for a decision to be made.

And wisdom will know that rest from information is needed.

This weekend we’re looking at Solomon’s prayer for wisdom in 1 Kings 3. We’ll explore what biblical wisdom looks like and what might be the most important key for growing wiser. 

We need wisdom to make better decisions. We need wisdom for navigating our most important relationships. We need wisdom for life.