(Proverbs 1)
Listen
There are not many who do this well but many who think they do.
Listen
Listen to Instruction and Wisdom
The trick is descerning who too listen too. Because, we should not listen to everyone. There are some that are bent on destruction and they do not know it. There are those that are following a path that will one day take their very lives. Through their greed and selfishness they lead all those who listen to them away from God…
away from good Instruction….
away from Wisdom.
These people are hard to spot… because they are “so nice”.
Listening is figuring out who not to listen too and that takes prayer and thought.
On the other hand, we often reject what we should listen to and accept what we shouldn’t listen too. We tend to listen for people who agree with us instead of for information that would change and help us. In doing this we miss learning wisdom.
Sometimes all we do is hear and thats it.
Hearing is not the same as listening. We only hear when we enter a conversation with our minds already made up. We have these conversations so we can say we listened to “counsel” before we made the decision (but that is a lie). Most of the communication we have to “gain counsel” is really spent trying to convince the person we are talking to that we are right. We just want them to give us conformation, we really do not want the instruction we seem like we are seeking.
And I could go on and on…
But what if this year we followed the instruction of Proverbs 1 and actually listened for instruction. What if we made an effort to listen to learn and rejected our tendency to merely hear. What if we set out to listen to become better people. What if we would listen and take instruction seriously?
Well… we would wind up gaining wisdom…
and we would find ourselves living “secure”. (Proverbs 1:33)
We would be “at ease, without dread of disaster” (Proverbs 1:33)
My prayer today is God would help me listen and not merely hear. I don’t need to know it all, but I do need all the instruction and wisdom I can get…
and that requires me to…
Listen and not merely hear.
What did you see in the passage today? What verse stood out to you?
phillipbrande.com 
Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” Proverbs 1:7
May I be ever mindful of the Lord’s invitation to turn from the ways of this world- seeking only His wisdom…so that I can receive the pouring out of His Spirit and live with His peace. Proverbs 1:23,33
For a while now I have been working on reading the Bible. Phillip gives me another book to read when I get through one and on and on. I am actually in proverbs now, pretty far in I am happy I say and he told me to pay attention to the poetry…. To do this I have to really listen… Sometimes it means listening to them more than once. I listen on my way to work every morning. Sometimes my mind wants to go onto work or my to to lists, but I find my best part of my day had become that quiet time with God where I am listening…. Now if I can just learn to “be still” 🙂
Lol! I lied! I am in psalms! But still, same thing applies. 🙂
The girls and I are reading this as our daily reading. We are using a really easy to understand children’s version and the girls understand this chapter to mean they should value wisdom and not cave to peer pressure.