Zeal Without Knowledge?

TEXT: PROVERBS 19: 2

“It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor be hasty and miss the way.” (Proverbs 19:2).

Knowledge can be explained as having the facts or having the right information. It can also be explained as skills acquired through experience, practice or education.

Knowledge is having an understanding of a subject matter in a given field.

It can be explained as having first-hand experience or idea.

To excel in life you must have a very good measure of knowledge in your chosen field or sector. Knowledge is what illuminates your mind to see things beyond their real form.

Knowledge transforms your mind from being a novice to a genius in your field of expertise. Knowledge takes people from the level of mediocrity to become experts and helps in the improvement of their lives.

Formal education is not the only avenue to have knowledge for everyday life. Some knowledge are gained informally outside the four walls of school.

In fact, there are some hand on experiences that one may need to learn outside formal setting that would be a bed rock to the experience needed to excel in your chosen field. Formal education may teach the theoretical aspect while non formal setting could be where your “hand on experience” would come from. This is why you have to have an open mind and not to be in a hurry to get things done- take your time to gain knowledge from different angles- knowledge can be gotten from the least expected channel and it may be imparted to you unconsciously (for example; during a casual discussion with someone).

Knowledge makes you to be rightfully informed and makes you to be skilful in your endeavours.

If anyone dabbles into a business or a career without having prior knowledge of the field or venture, if he or she does not know the nitty gritty and what it takes to be successful in such field, failure and frustration is inevitable!

Knowledge is power. The simplest task in the world could pose a problem to someone that does not have the right information and the required knowledge on how to perform such task. Hence, the “simple task” becomes a “mighty mountain” of problem to the ignorant person.

Out text told us that it is not good to have zeal without knowledge. Yes! Some people are so passionate and zealous in their endeavours, but as much as they invested all time and energy to this cause; nothing good is being recorded for them as success. Why? This may be because they fail to add knowledge to their zeal and passion.

I have heard people investing in businesses they know nothing about, but because they have the money to finance it and they heard it is lucrative, they ventured into it without equipping themselves with a little measure of knowledge to run the business. They will hire and expert to run the business, invariably, the life of the business is in the hand of the hired expert. Any negative move from the expert may be the end of the multi- million dollar business!

Rather than their expectation of recording success, they are faced with difficulty and disappointment because they lack the “KNOW HOW” – No prior knowledge of how the business works.

Our anchor text also said “it is not good to be hasty and miss the way.”

Some people are going the wrong direction so fast- They are in a haste going the wrong direction. Mind you, it does not matter how fast you are going, if you are heading toward the wrong direction.

I watched a viral video on Facebook where there was marathon race between some children. The girl that took the first leg of the race ran so fast that she was miles ahead of her competitors. She got to the next leg and gave the baton to the next person in line to continue the race. However, as soon as the boy in the second leg of the race collected the baton, he continue running with the speed of the lightening; but guess what? HE HEADED TOWARD THE WRONG DIRECTION! Instead of running to the finish line, he ran back to the starting point while other competitors that were slow at the first leg of the race continued the race to the finish line.

It is so sad to see that despite the massive distance between the girl that started the race on the first leg and the other competitors, success was not recorded at the end because of the boy that ran to the wrong direction.

At the end of the race, the girl and the boy that could run with the flash of lightening lost the race to the slow competitors!

The message the Lord is passing across to you today is that you should not be zealous for nothing- zealousness without knowledge will amount to failure, frustration and disappointment.