Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

I'm Wyn Collier, and I'm reading the piece I wrote today entitled, Wisdom We Need.

In his monumental book, The Great Influenza, John M. Barry recounts the story of the 1918 flu epidemic.

Barry reveals how health officials, rather than being caught off guard, anticipated a massive

outbreak. They feared that World War I, with hundreds of thousands of troops crammed into trenches and moving

across borders, would unleash new viruses.

But this knowledge was useless to stop the devastation.

Powerful leaders beating the drums of war rushed toward violence.

An epidemiologist estimate that 50 million people died in the epidemic, adding to the roughly

20 million killed in the war's carnage.

We've proven over and again that our human knowledge will never be enough to rescue

us from evil.

Though we've amassed immense knowledge and present remarkable

insights, we still can't stop the pain we inflict on one another. We can't halt the way of the

wicked, this foolish, repetitive path that leads to deep darkness.

Despite our best knowledge, we really have no idea what makes us stumble.

That's why we must get wisdom, get understanding.

Wisdom teaches us what to do with knowledge.

And true wisdom, this wisdom we desperately require, comes from God.

Our knowledge always falls short, but his wisdom provides what we need.

Today's our daily bread devotional scripture reading is from Proverbs 4 verses 10 to 19. Listen, my son, accept what I say, and the years of your life will be many.

I instruct you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths.

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