About exerting yourself toward wisdom and understanding:

Deut. 4:6 Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." (NIV)

We have the image of wisdom and understanding coming to us in some kind of "aha" moment. We have the idea wisdom and understanding come to us without our ever having to do anything or without our ever having to exert ourselves to find wisdom and understanding. However, the idea wisdom and understanding come to us without our having to do anything is not productive. We are to seek wisdom and understanding with the full force and power of our will. In addition, we are not to live in ignorance. We are not to put up with ignorance. For example, we make mistakes. Too often we make the same mistakes over and over again. One of the reasons we repeat our mistakes is we do not exert ourselves to get to the wisdom of why our mistakes were made in the first place. As bad as this reason sounds, the truth is we do not exert ourselves to seek wisdom to find the cause of and fix our mistakes. Lastly, we are not supposed to wait until something comes into our mind in a single moment of insight to gain wisdom. We are to push hard to find and use the wisdom of God in all matters.