Big Idea: What
if wisdom really could change everything?
I was half-awake, clutching a
warm mug and scrolling through my phone like the answers to my life might
eventually appear between notifications. Same café as always. Same moss-green
walls. Same lo-fi beats smoothing out the edges of my exhaustion. And the same
restless sense that something in my life needed to shift, but I had no idea
where to begin.
That’s when he sat down.
A man I’d
never seen before slid into the chair across from me with the quiet confidence
of someone who belonged wherever he chose to be. His linen shirt looked soft
and lived-in, sleeves rolled to reveal strong, scarred forearms. His
silver-streaked hair was tied loosely back. His boots looked handmade, like
something passed down rather than purchased. A faint cedar scent followed
him — warm, grounding, familiar in a way I couldn’t explain.
He looked squarely at me. “You’re
Ethan, right?” he inquired.
“That’s me, Ethan McKenzie.” I
blinked. “Do I… know you?”
He smiled gently, tapping the
table twice with two fingers — a gesture that felt intentional, almost
rhythmic. “Not yet,” he said. “But you’ve read what I wrote.”
That didn’t clear anything up.
He nodded toward my phone.
“Proverbs. I authored most of it.”
I stared. “You’re saying you’re
Solomon?”
A soft chuckle. “The very one.”
My heartbeat shifted into a
confused, caffeinated gallop. I wasn’t sure whether to run, ask questions, or
check if someone had slipped mushrooms into my latte.
“Why are you here?” I finally
asked.
He folded his scarred hands —
hands that looked like they had once held both tools and crowns — and leaned
in. “Because you’ve been making decisions tired,” he said. “Reacting instead of
steering. You have more information than ever before, but less wisdom than you
need. And wisdom,” he tapped the table again, “is why I’m here.”
A surprising lump formed in my
throat. He wasn’t wrong.
“I want to walk with you through
the Book of Proverbs,” he said. “Ninety days. A slow journey. Simple enough for
your morning coffee, deep enough to stay with you long after.”
I swallowed. “How… exactly?”
He opened the notebook and turned
it toward me. Inside were sketches — paths, foundations, branching roads — like
he carried a blueprint for the human soul.
“Each day,” he said, “we’ll look
at a few verses from Proverbs. I’ll explain what they mean — not in religious
fog, but in real language. We’ll talk through how they work in everyday life:
relationships, decisions, pressure, temptation, identity. The things that undo
people… and the things that build them.”
He flipped to another page with
three handwritten lines: What? So What? Now
What?
“It ends this way each day,”
Solomon said. “Three questions. Three anchors.”
He pointed to the first. “What? —
What does this passage actually say? Not what you wish it said, or fear it says
— what it says.”
Then the second. “So What? — Why
does this matter right now? How does this intersect with your emotions, your
choices, your patterns, your reality?”
Finally, the last. “Now What? —
What should you do about it today? One step. One shift. Wisdom is not
information. It’s action.”
“This isn’t a study,” he said
quietly. “It’s a mentorship. A journey. A chance to stop drifting and start
living with intention.”
He slid back his chair and stood,
that faint cedar scent moving with him. “Tomorrow,” he said, “same table. Day two.”
I watched him walk out of the
café, my mug warm between my hands, my pulse steadying into something I hadn’t
felt for a long time:
Hope.
Anticipation.
And the quiet, unsettling sense
that wisdom had just invited me into something that might change everything.
