In the context of the story that Jesus tells, wisdom is to comprehend a situation and then act accordingly. The man who builds his house on the rock knows that there is likely to be rain and floods in the future, and so he makes a decision in the present that will protect him from the storms to come in the future. In the Middle East, rains would turn previously dry riverbeds into raging torrents and test the quality of building work.1
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.