Albert Einstein said, “you really don’t understand something unless you can explain it to a six year old.” George Patton said, “you really don’t understand something unless you can keep it simple enough to explain to a private first class.” Both of these men said basically the thing: there is a difference between knowing something and understanding something.

I am not sure I agree with Albert Einstein’s opinion because I have tried to explain things to young children and have come up short many times. I am also not sure I agree with George Patton because I have also tried to explain things (the hotel business) to other like minded adults and have many times come up short. That said, these were two pretty smart people, and we should pay attention to their wisdom and what it means.

The space between your brain (the knowing) and your heart (the understanding) is only about 12 inches, but the difference between the two is enormous. It is one thing to know something and be able to talk about it in front of people, but it is an entirely different thing to understand it.

King Solomon of Israel was the wisest and smartest person that has ever lived, and he wrote the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in the Bible. He was the smartest person because when he became king of Israel, he was only 12 years old. God told him to ask for anything he wanted and it would be granted to him. Again, he was only 12 years old. Solomon’s request was that God would give him an understanding heart. Think about that. He could have asked for anything in the world and that was the 12-year-old boy’s request. God granted him an understanding heart like no other person in history has ever had or ever will have. That is why the book of Proverbs is so real time, even today because the understanding it was written with transcends time.

Two of the smartest people I have ever known never went to college and one of them didn’t even graduate high school. So, what I am saying is it is not about education and head knowledge, rather it is about heart knowledge and understanding. Simply put, it is understanding what you know. As stated above, there is a huge difference between knowing something and understanding something.

When you pray for wisdom in a certain area, don’t forget to pray for understanding because the wisdom is the application of the understanding. When you understand something, you always know, but many times you can know something without really understanding it.

So, pray for wisdom and understanding because having simply head knowledge does you no good if you don’t know how to use it. KT