Read Proverbs 18:4

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. –George Washington Carver

I have admired those words for years. They reflect a perspective easily forgotten in a dizzy schedule of demands and deadlines. 

It is easy in such a scene to become short-sighted, to think that now is forever. But those who sustain a close companionship with wisdom tend to be more tender, compassionate, sympathetic, and tolerant than those whose world revolves around themselves.

With wisdom comes depth and stability. 

When we navigate through life under full sail with wisdom at the helm, we may not miss all of the storms, but we will have the strength to persevere. We can face the unforeseen without the fear of sinking.

Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Wisdom for the Way (Nashville: J. Countryman, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.