12 Cardinal Pillars of Wisdom

By Phumudzo Nethwadzi

The strength of any valuable building rests on the integrity of the pillars that have been used to stabilise the structure. Strong pillars guarantee longevity whilst weak pillars can cause the building to collapse at any time. Wisdom is one of the great pillars of life. Where wisdom prevails, some of the virtues that follow those who value wisdom, include peace, joy, productivity, order, justice, solutions to human problems and wealth.

The 12 cardinal pillars offer us great insight on how any person can unpack these secrets of wisdom. These pillars include the following:
1. Wisdom of Humility

2. Wisdom of Decision Making
3. Wisdom of Thinking
4. Wisdom of Man
5. Wisdom of Sacrifice
6. Wisdom of Honour
7. Wisdom for being chosen for Marriage
8. Wisdom of Wealth
9. Wisdom of Partnership
10. Wisdom of Marketing
11. Wisdom of Rewards
12. Wisdom of Life

We all need these pillars in our lives as they provide secrets for our protection, preservation and solutions to the challenges of our time.

About the Author

Phumudzo Nethwadzi is an excellent teacher of the Word. He pastors a church in Alabama, Disciple Fellowship Int Centre. He has authored several books including two of his bestselling books, Prophetic Engagement and The Essence of Time. He is also a leadership coach and currently serves in various leadership structures including being a Board member of Environmental Assessment Practitioner of South Africa. He runs weekly leadership programmes on various Radio stations. Phumudzo currently resides in Klerksdorp, South Africa with his wife Lerato and their children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phumudzo Nethwadzi
• Release date: Sep 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463272206

Book preview

12 Cardinal Pillars of Wisdom

Phumudzo Nethwadzi

Copyright © 2019 Phumudzo Nethwadzi

Published by Phumudzo Nethwadzi Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by the Author using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Edited by Alexandra Le Feuvre for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

Website: www.reachpublishers.co.za

E-mail: [e-mail]

Contact the Author

www.phumudzonethwadzi.co.za

email; [e-mail]

cell; ([phone]

Acknowledgements

I would want to express my sincere appreciation to my long standing project partners that is; my sisters Ms Nethwadzi Fhatuwani, Ms Nethwadzi Tshilidzi and not forgetting my wife Ms Nethwadzi Lerato for their valuable inputs since the inception of this project. Your commitments and insights on this project were of great value. Thank you for coming on board when you were needed most.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Wisdom: The Principal Thing

1 The Wisdom of Humility

2 The Wisdom of Decision Making

3 The Wisdom of Thinking

4 The Wisdom of Man

5 The Wisdom of Sacrifice

6 The Wisdom of Honour

7 The Wisdom of Being Chosen for Marriage

8 The Wisdom of Wealth

9 The Wisdom of Partnership

10 The Wisdom of Marketing

11 The Wisdom of Rewards

12 The Wisdom for Life

References

Wisdom: The Principal Thing

We are living in an era where there is so much confusion. Everyone wishes to have a life where he/she will make choices that bring the desired results. However, at times we find ourselves trapped by consequences of the choices that we make.

I recently visited one of my former university friends. The feeling of meeting with this individual after some time was marvellous. We began our conversation talking about life and the consequences of choices we make. As part of the engagement, my friend hinted at the fact that it is because of God that she is where she is today in light of the challenges associated with her background. At this point, she seriously caught my attention and I was keen to understand the nature of the challenges that she had been through. Part of the difficulty, she hinted, was the fact that her father had three wives. As I stared at her she must have assumed that I could be silently drawing some conclusions about her being against polygamy, thus she justified her statement: Look, the point I am making is that he was not able to take care of us, what made the situation worse was that as a migrant labourer he left us in Venda and went to Johannesburg. The sad part was that he also found other concubines who made him completely forget the family in Venda. There was no support at all from him.

At that point I began to see tears falling down her cheeks as she continued to talk about what seemed to be a bad past experience. She went on to explain that somebody adopted and raised her until tertiary level where she completed her degree in Geology. As I took part in this engagement, she brought home a point that unsettled me – man does not learn from other people’s mistakes.

She went on to say that she had recently been to a funeral for a young man who was middle aged. She found it strange that this man was educated, compared to her father who was not, but that by the time he died, he had followed the same route as her father even though he was educated. At that point I was reminded of the old adage experience is the best teacher. I began questioning why people are not willing to learn and do things differently after learning lessons and making mistakes. As part of this inquisitiveness, I studied materials of one of the great philosophers of the past whose advice, instruction and analysis of life are still relevant at this point in time. The first part of his statement was that there is nothing new under the sun, things we do have already been done elsewhere. In other words, if you want to find out why businesses fail, marriages collapse, people are poor, people are rich, then all you need to do is to profile their history. History is full of examples of people who have made wise or foolish choices and of the consequences associated with such choices. Whatever vision or dream you have, it is unlikely or impossible that you are the first person to go through the process of doing something similar or related. It is for this reason that twelve cardinal pillars of wisdom are available for your learning; they will provide great benefit to your life, and to the lives of others.

Chapter 1

The Wisdom of Humility

There are different behavioural styles associated with humility. Different people have different opinions of what humility is and what it is not. I am not interested in venturing into the debate of which personality styles can be qualified as being humble. However, I am persuaded to follow the classical example pointed out by Paul in Philippians 2:6-8 who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of bondservant and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to a point of death. From this quote, it would seem to me that humility is referred to as a deliberate choice to abandon a place or position or an office or state of recognition whilst focusing on important priorities. For instance, Jesus (The Word) left heaven and embraced living as a human being despite being God just for the sake of redeeming human lives (important priorities).

The wisdom of humility finds its expression by not focusing on position or office when addressing or interacting with people. In the case of Jesus, the Bible says that He did not consider Himself as equal with God but He took on the form of a human being. There are times in this life when one should not carry along position or state of recognition anywhere. There are places where our position or state of societal recognition may not be of relevance. The wisdom of humility manifests itself through the mind-set or attitude of rendering the required service in spite of one’s position or influence. A man is not humble unless he or she can render a service which is meant for individuals who are of a lower rank than him or her. Christ displayed this by taking on the form of a human.

As far as Christ is concerned, I used to think that the process of taking the form of human was very simple. However, upon meditating on this, it has dawned on my spirit that there is no way that this was a simple thing as it is unnatural. It was not simple because:

God is to be worshipped

Taking the form of a human being simply meant that God was leaving a role where he was worshipped