Can you hear it?
I have read the passage hundreds of time. It is time I comment on it. Proverbs 8:1-2 says, “Does not wisdom cry out, and understanding lift up her voice? She takes her stand on the top of the high hill. Beside the way, where the paths meet.” How many of us think about this?
How can you hear wisdom? The passage says that wisdom cries out, yet you can’t audibly hear anything? The question should really be, “Are people listening for wisdom?” How can people listen for wisdom, when they may no longer carry the “boom boxes” from the eighties, but ARE wired into the ear sets of iPods, iPads, iPhones and all sorts of MP3 players? The style choices for music, talk shows and news are seemingly endless. The preferences people plug into stimulate their brains, bodies and souls, which can fill every waking moment, so that no one could ever become “bored.” How can people listen for wisdom if they are always listening to something on the television, radio or techno gadget?
How many people have the television on in the background, even though they are not really listening to it? There is something that our flesh likes about having music, or talking, in the background. When I visited my cousins on the farm, my uncle always played music on the radio at milking time, because it calmed the cows and they produced more milk. Do we like something in the background to keep us calm and we really do not like silence?
All the noise can easily become “white noise.” What happens then? What might be very important is not heard, like wisdom calling in “the way, where the paths meet…by the gates, at the entry of the city.”
In fact, wisdom is spiritual wisdom, just like God is Spirit. You cannot feel, taste, touch, see, smell, or hear God. You cannot use the senses during this Age to connect with God. God has provided everything you need to understand and know Him through His Word. The Christian way of life is based on faith, not sight. Paul makes this point clear when he said, “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” (Col. 2:6) How did you receive Jesus as your Savior? You received Him by faith. It was not by works, feelings, sight, hearing or any other physical sense. You received Him by faith and you are also to live by faith, not by your senses or personal efforts. You are to live by trusting in Him to do His work through you by means of His Spirit.
Consequently, wisdom is given by God’s Spirit as you hide God’s Word in your heart. God’s Spirit guides you into the Word (John 16:13) and enlightens you as a partaker of the Holy Spirit (Heb. 6:4). When a person is filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18), he will be enlightened and the Word will not be a dry desert, but a loud message awakening him from his slumberous walk in life.
Proverbs eight continues to use the hearing sense personified, just as wisdom is personified as a lady to be courted by a pursuing believer,
· 32 “Now therefore, listen to me, my children, for blessed are those who keep my ways.
· 33 Hear instruction and be wise, and do not disdain it.
· 34 Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors.
· 35 For whoever finds me finds life, And obtains favor from the LORD. (Pro. 8:32-35)
Wait in silence before God and wisdom will call to your soul and lead you in God’s presence of blessing and life.
Silence is a Spiritual Discipline1 that must be cultivated. How will that happen in a world full of white noise? Schedule times of silence in the day, so that as you meditate on God’s Word, or at least have God’s Word in the back of your mind, wisdom will speak to you and you will understand the will of the Lord. Unless you schedule silence into your life, you will miss wisdom crying out to you.
1Look back at the following link on Spiritual Disciplines for a short description on the Spiritual Discipline of Silence: http://renewingtruth.blogspot.com/2013/03/words-spiritual-disciplines-part-3.html
Shepherding Truth 