This past week, I turned fifty-three years old. I don’t know why, but that somehow seems monumentally older than fifty-two, and I’m living with this sense that I should now have the ability to pour forth words of wisdom and live the serene life of someone who’s got it all together. You know me—I’m doing neither.

In fact, the older I get, the more I realize that gaining wisdom is an ongoing process; it’s not a one-time event or something acquired automatically at a given age. As for that serene life, I’m not so sure I even want that. After all, pain and conflict have a way of letting us know that we’re not numb, and that we are still very much alive.

However, I confess that I do want to be wise. The Book of Proverbs in the Bible has much to say about wisdom, and it strongly emphasizes that getting wisdom is a good thing. So I’ve chosen four areas in which I want to demonstrate wisdom in the year ahead.

Spiritual wisdom:

You’d expect that from a faith-based blog writer, wouldn’t you? But it’s true. I want to be wise in where I place my trust and in how I worship my God. I want to demonstrate wisdom in how I learn about Him through church services and Bible studies. And I want to be wise by being deliberate about spending personal “God-and-I-time” with Him each day—sitting at His feet, as it were, and “listening” to the words He speaks to me from the pages of the Bible. When His wisdom finds its way into my heart, I will think wisely, live in a wise way, and speak words of wisdom.

Relational wisdom:

I’m a planner. I like to know what will happen. God knows the outcome already, so I just don’t have a clue why I get so riled up about my various relationships. I really want to have wisdom in this area, so again, I will need to be deliberate in keeping my first and most important relationship—my relationship with God—as my primary focus. That allows me to contentedly leave all other relationships under His control!

Financial wisdom:

This has been a weak area for me. I made a lot of poor choices in my twenties and thirties—You mean, money doesn’t grow on trees?—and it was an endless cycle of attempting to repair not only my habits but the ensuing damage. However, by God’s almighty grace, I now live with the knowledge that stuff is just stuff—it has lost its once-powerful allure, and it no longer enslaves me! But that freedom is based on daily, minute-by-minute choices to be a wise steward with what He entrusts to me. By the way, this includes implementing wisdom in how I use the skills—both business skills and personal talents—that I have been given. Who cares if I die wealthy? No one. Who cares if I made a difference through wise use of my funds, talents, and resources? Those whose lives were impacted by their wise use.

Physical wisdom:

I can’t even believe I’m confessing this on a public blog, but…here goes. I’m currently a lousy representation of physical wisdom. Lousy—times seven! Though my explanations of the weight I’ve gained in recent years are solid (erratic eating habits, sitting at a computer for the majority of the day, age, post-surgery body, blah-blah-blah…), the excuses are weak. They clearly portray my unwise choices in what I eat, when I eat it, and how I eat it. So, in the year ahead—and for many years to come, God willing—I’m deliberately choosing wisely, exercising, and remembering that I need to be and feel my best so that nothing—especially not embarrassment about “letting myself go”—distracts me from being wise in all the other areas.

So at the end of my life, when someone asks—and I hope they’ll be able to ask this—”How’d You Get So Smart?” I hope I’ll be able to say that, in 2014, I utilized God-given wisdom by making God-honoring choices.