This is coming a little late in the day (10:43 p.m.) but thought I’d share some thoughts from my reading this morning, Prov. 2.
It was great to see God at work even more when I came to encounter this morning and it was the primary passage Brian spoke from.
Like most of Proverbs, the focus of Prov. 2 on wisdom and learning the fear and knowledge of the Lord.
As I seek God’s wisdom, will and direction in various areas of my life it’s easy to assume/hope/pray that God will magically open a door, we’ll walk through and presto life will make sense.
As I read this passage I think God is saying things might work a little differently.
turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding,
and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
I look at the steps needed to find knowledge and I need to turn my ear towards wisdom, apply my heart to understanding, call out for insight, call out, cry aloud, look for it as treasure and search for it as hidden treasure.
Those aren’t easy things to do.
It’s not ouija Bible or flip a coin to find God’s will – it’s seek and look hard for it as you would look for silver or hidden treasure.
I’ve never really searched for hidden treasure, other than geocaching, so that’s about all I can compare it to.
But it’s easy to get out and look for a couple minutes for a geocache and then give up if we don’t find it right away. Sometimes we might find an easy “park and grab” that takes very little effort to find. But the real reward comes when we search and search and search and find that hidden treasure that’s really worth the effort.
Same with seeking God’s wisdom. Sometimes we might get little nuggets that come easy – those are great and helpful but may not take us very far. But those pieces of wisdom that we really seek out and search for will really make a difference. That’s when we’ll learn the fear and knowledge of the Lord.
I’ll post Brian’s thoughts on the encounter podcast soon. Feel free to share your own in the comments below as well.
