“Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at my doorposts.”   Proverbs 8:34

Wisdom had regaled us with tales of creation and what it was like to watch and be a participant in the very creation of all that God has made.  We have seen from Wisdom's statements and from an examination of the world around us, that we can trust Wisdom and what God says to us through His Word.  Now we hear Wisdom calling us to be a listener - to be one who watches and waits for what God has to say to us.  Just as God has been true about His creation of this world - so He is now calling us to listen to what He has to say to us about life itself - and how to live it.

Blessed is the man who listens to me.  This is God's promise of happiness for those who listen - who heed what He has do say.  The word for blessed means one who is happy.  The happiness experienced is not a transitory happiness based on getting our own way and living for what we want to live for day to day.  It is a happiness at a much deeper level - more than happiness.  This is about a deep-seated joy that comes from knowing and walking with God.  It comes from knowing Him - and knowing His blessing in our lives.  But this blessing is conditional - it is for those who listen to Him.  We need to open our ears and more than that, our hearts, to what God desires for us.  There needs to be more than basic hearing.  Let me explain with a less than gracious example from my own experience.

I am a guy - which usually means there are times I have "listening" issues.  My wife is very gracious in spite of my listening disorder.  There are times when she is talking to me (come to think of it - I also have four daughters who struggle with this "lack" of mine as well) that she will pause and ask me if I am listening to her.  My response is to repeat the last sentence she has just said.  This is not amusing to her at all.  She did not ask if I heard words that she was saying to me - she wanted to know if I actually listened to her.  This, my dear fellow males, means was I listening for the purpose of furthering our relationship.  Was I listening so as to hear more than just words - was I hearing her heart.  If I had honestly answered that question I would have had to say no.  I was not listening - I heard some stuff - but I was not really hearing with understanding.  I was not hearing to have a relationship.  To put it in a way that maybe we can understand - I was not truly "getting her."  That would have required listening.  It would have required zeroing in on what she was saying with an intent to know what she said, why she said it, and respond in an intelligent and caring way that expressed that I loved her . . . more than the football game that I was currently watching.  (Wow - that was far more cathartic than I thought.)

God wants us to LISTEN to Him.  He wants us to do two things each day.  First He wants us to be "watching at His gates."  The "gate" was the place where important decisions were made.  This was serious stuff - because it was at the gate that the wisest and most influential men gathered.  God wants us to listen and watch for the really important stuff in life.  We need to watch for Him - because He will give us guidance on the major decisions and major life choices that we face each day.  But he also calls for us to be "waiting at His doorposts."  What a wonderful picture that this is.  The doorposts referred to the opening of the house.  This speaks of two things.  First it speaks of intimacy - of a relationship where we can talk about everything in life.  God tells fathers to talk to their children in this way.  He wants us to speak to our kids when we get up and go to sleep each day.  He wants us to talk to them about Him when we go out and come in.  He also wants us to write on our very doorposts the Word of God - so that is what we see when we go out and come in.  This is every day life - and the wonderful blessing of having a friend with whom we can talk when we are going through our day. 

The second thing this points to is redemption.  We wait for God at the doorposts of our house.  This was the place where every year the Jewish family would put blood for the Passover.  This blood was left on the doorposts overnight.  Over time the obedient Jewish family would wind up with permanent blood stains on their door frame.  But oh what a wonderful picture this is of how we wait for God.  Wisdom reminds us that we are God's people.  We are bought with a price - and we are redeemed.  When we wait for Him here - we experience intimacy - but we also are reminded that we are intimate because we are redeemed.

Wisdom calls us to walk with and know God.  This is done in every area of our lives.  It is in the big stuff - and in the little stuff.  It is in the huge decisions that will direct our lives - but it is also in the little decisions that set the daily course of where we will walk today.  The thing wisdom asks of us is that we listen.  That does not mean being able to quote Bible verses by rote - but not really know what they mean.  Listening means coming before God and hearing Him with a bent to know His heart.  When we do that - we will see that this is the true way to a deep abiding happiness that will last throughout a lifetime.

How blessed is the man who finds wisdom And the man who gains understanding. Proverbs 3:13

Happy is the man who finds the wisdom of God.  That is what our proverb says today.  But the happiness spoken of here is no mere good mood - it is a happiness rooted in spiritual things - in knowing God Himself. 

The word "blessed" here is the Hebrew word "eser" and it means to be in a state of bliss.  This word is almost exclusively used in a poetic context and is usually used in an exclamation.  "Oh the blessedness!"  would be the normal expression using this word.  This word is used several times to speak of the joy and blessedness - indeed the bliss enjoyed by someone who has a relationship with God.  Here though, the word is referring to one who finds the wisdom of God.  Even more so, the blessing refers to one who not only gathers wisdom from God - but who can use it to discern.  He gains understanding from God's wisdom entering his life. 

When we find wisdom, we learn to turn from the worldly ways of this present life and seek out God's answers for things.  We come to see life from the perspective of God.  What God thinks and what God wants becomes paramount in our lives.  Oh, what a blessing comes when we finally turn from our own selfish thinking and learn to look at things His way.  We turn from the insanity of a self-driven life to a life guided and led by a loving God who knows what is best in every situation. 

When we gain understanding we are even more blessed.  This is the ability to discern - to distinguish between things that differ.  We can know the difference between our will and God's will.  We know what is right and what is wrong.  We can discern between two or three different options which one is God's will.  In a world where we have to make hundereds of decisions each day - that is a wonderful gift. 

If you have found wisdom - and are gaining understanding - don't take it for granted.  It is a rare thing for a man to have wisdom come into his life.  It is an act of God's grace and mercy.  For this you should fall to your knees and thank God for such a fantastic gift!

For wisdom will enter your heart And knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; Proverbs 2:10

God wants us to have a "heart" religion - and not just one that affects our heads on certain days.  Here we have Solomon speaking to us about having wisdom enter our hearts and knowledge becoming pleasant to our mind, will, and emotions.  This is the kind of work that the Lord wants to do in us.  Let's take a closer look at what it means to have this happen - and the reason it is not such an easy task.

First of all - as with all things in a Biblical worldview, sin has made things diffiicult because it has ruined us.  We learn from the prophets that we currently have a heart of stone.  One of the promises of the new covenant is that God will remove from us this heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh.  The sign of this is that God will have written His commandments on our hearts - and we will want to obey Him.  Part of this process also comes when we seek the Lord and desire to know Him and the wisdom that comes from having His Word before our eyes.  In Proverbs 2 we see the pursuit of God's Word - and the passion that Solomon had for it.  This is a work of grace because we read in 1 Peter 1 that we are to long for the Word like a newborn babe longs for its mother's milk.  When that work of grace happens - the Word of God will dwell within us richly - and in time - it will enter our hearts.  This work of God's grace will encsure that wisdom too will enter our hearts. 

To have wisdom from the Word in our hearts is vital.  Jesus said that it is out of the abundance of what is in the heart that the mouth speaks.  That is why it is so important to have wisdom enter our hearts.  The heart is also the wellspring of our being.  Whatever reigns in our hearts will reign in our lives.  That is why we don't just want a small helping of the Word of God - but we want it to dwell richly within us.  We want an abundance of the Word in us - and we want it to powerfully speak to us as we seek the Lord and desire to hear from Him through His Word.

The second precious work we read of here is having knowledge from God become pleasant to our soul.  The word here for knowing is the Hebrew word "daath" and it means a knowing by experience, encounter, and relationship.  This is not just having a mental knowing in our heads - it is truly knowing God in an intimate relationship with Him.  We have encountered God Himself - we've experienced Him - and as a result of our former and continued encounters with Him - we know wisdom.

What is even more precious to me about this verse is that we learn that this intimate knowing of God Himself will become pleasant to our souls.  The word used here is "naem" and it means something sweet, beautiful, pleasing, comfortable, and delightful.  Remember that when we read of a work in our souls - we are talking about a work in our mind, will, and emotions. 

When wisdom enters our hearts - knowing God will be pleasant to our minds.  Before this work of grace we were opposed to God - and the thought of someone having ultimate authority in our lives yielded rebellion and resentment.  Our minds were disturbed by the thought of someone who knows our every thought and deed.  It was anything but comforting to know that we would stand in the judgment and give an account for every word, thought, motive, and deed.  Our response to such things was anything but pleasant.

When wisdom enters our hearts - knowing God will be pleasant to our will.  Here is an interesting study in the Scriptures.  Before a work of God's grace happens in our hearts, obedience to God is anything but pleasant and delightful to us.  We are born rebels and our status as such is confirmed again and again by our response to God's Law.  God's Law reveals to us that we are sinners - that we do not find submission to God pleasant.  We rebel against it and do not do the things that His Word says to do.  If any one passage of Scripture bears this out it is Romans chapter 7.  There Paul reminds us that the things we want to do, we don't do - but the very prohibitions of the Law are what we choose to do.  Paul's cry at the end of that chapter is that he is a wretched man who desperately needs deliverance from sin.  But when God does that work through Jesus Christ our Lord, we find that a transformation has taken place - and that transformation continues as we walk with God, indeed finding an intimate walk with God pleasant to our will. 

When wisdom enters our hearts - knowing God will be pleasant to our emotions.  Our emotions can be a source of amazing blessing as well as a source of untold problems.  Some wind up with their emotions far more in control of their lives than they are in control of their emotions.  We find ourselves on an emotional high during which we would do anything for the Lord.  But then we find ourselves in the same week with an emotional state, that if we let it control us, will render us almost incapable of doing anything.  Here is where wisdom is so important to our souls.  When that work of God's grace begins to change us, we learn to tell our emotions that they will not control us.  We enjoy our emotions, but learn not to have them dominate our moods - and our attitude.  That is reserved for God's Word which consistently directs us as the Holy Spirit uses our mind to understand it - our will to choose it - and His power to carry it out.  When that work of God's grace happens, we find knowing God in our emotions a delightful thing.  Before you think that emotions are a bad thing - I want to remind you that David spoke of how his emotions were moved by God Himself - and how he knew the heights of joy as well as the depths of despair - all as he knew the living God in relationship to Him. 

Walking with God is more than just knowing a bunch of principles and ideas.  That kind of thing smells of religion.  God wants a vital relationship with us.  It takes the entrance of wisdom into our hearts for us to move into that precious relationship.  As we seek the Lord, may He give us grace to know such a marvelous intimacy with Him.