A Happy Life is a "Listening" Life - Proverbs 8:34

“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.