Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
incline your heart to understanding.

Proverbs 2:2

[NOTE: You probably feel a bit confused trying to read through a Proverb a day coinciding with the date of the calendar while I hang out in the first chapters chatting away about wisdom. I understand your concern and it is a normal reaction. Keep reading that chapter a day even if I don’t catch up to you (but I probably will). I am confident that God will pair what you are reading with the word/s I am focusing on each day even when the “days don’t match up”!  God’s Word is amazing that way! I don’t apologize for the long visit with chapter one as we needed to cover all of Solomon’s purpose statement about wisdom. And just a heads up, we will be in chapter two for a few days as we continue to lay the foundation for all of Proverbs!] 

So, Onward!

We found in chapter one of Proverbs the expression of Solomon’s purpose statement for writing The Proverbs, ie; to gain wisdom. We find in the first ten verses of chapter two Solomon sharing with his son the treatise of God about wisdom! If his son…then God…and the end result is incredible!

We need to add verse one to accurately begin this treatise. This is a basic 101 course in improving one’s life in just about every way possible. There are no shortcuts. There are no bribes or cheating allowed. Cliff Notes will not make the grade. 

My son, if you will receive my words and treasure my commandments within you…(then) make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding. 

Proverbs 2:1-2 (italics mine)

Humans claim they want to be wise and they want to understand what is happening around them. The disconnect happens because we humans, in our pride, don’t want to hear God’s Words let alone treasure His commandments!  To do that infringes on our freedoms and individuality. To do that means we must bow the knee to our Creator God and call Him LORD and that is just asking too much, or so we think. So, we find our own wisdom and listen to every Tom, Dick and Sally who claims they are experts in this or that and then we fabricate all kinds of little ‘g’ gods to try and make sense of the insensibility of man’s so-called knowledge and wisdom. And then we humans wonder why we lay awake at night so we do all kinds of silly and harmful things to try and quite the noise that is raging around us and within us.

But, when we gratefully and wholly receive God’s Words and treasure His commandments, then we have true freedom to hear and pay attention to the only wisdom that matters: God’s wisdom. And then our heart (soul or spirit) lines up with the wisdom that is filling our mind and emotions and we are able to declutter all the chaos and lies and fake news swirling around us and we…understand! The blinders are removed and we see clearly God’s hand moving throughout history and within our own lifetime to the glorious eternal future He has promised all who trust in Him! Incredible!

We must guard against becoming like the church in Laodicea though! 

Revelation 3:17 Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,”