Proverbs 23:12 Apply your heart to instruction
and your ears to words of knowledge.
Everyone receives instruction and everyone hears words of knowledge, but not everyone benefits from them. We have to choose to receive what is available to us, to take it to heart, before it does us much good. As someone who taught for a living for 42 years, I’ve experienced the whole gamut in this area. I’ve had students who were like sponges, absorbing with joy anything I taught them, and I’ve had students who were like Teflon-coated cookware, not absorbing a thing. When it comes to learning, native ability is certainly important, but attitude is perhaps even more important. When it comes to learning from God, attitude is everything, because comparing our ability to that of God is like comparing a drop of water to the ocean. He has made us in His image, (Genesis 1:27) but it’s very much like a drop of water is the image of the ocean. God allows us to have all sorts of experiences, some pleasant and some painful, but every one of them is instructive, if our hearts are tuned to learn from God. Likewise, we practically drown in a sea of noise, but only a small fraction of that qualifies as words of knowledge. Today we live in the Information Age, but the vast majority of what comes to us is irrelevant to us, or even outright wrong. We need to choose what we listen to. These days many people spend their days with wireless earbuds in their ears, not really hearing what is actually going on around them. That’s pathetic! Deafness is one thing, but choosing not to hear is another. We need to remember that we are called to be disciples, and a disciple is a learner above all. As a simple matter of capacity, there is no way we could learn all of God while we are on this earth, so we should be eager to keep learning for as long as He has us here.
I have delighted to learn all my life, I think, but my choices of what to learn haven’t always been wise. Much of what I have learned I have acquired by being called on to teach it to others, either in an academic setting or as a pastor. In this church we are currently in the beginning stages of teaching about motivational gifts, and I am having to refresh my memory on the subject. That’s proof that we can learn something, but if we don’t apply it regularly, it fades into the background. I honestly remember very little of the German I studied in college, for example. German isn’t very important to my life at this point, but God’s instructions are a different matter. As James so succinctly told us, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22) I need to apply what God tells me, both through the Bible and otherwise, with a heart that is eager to know more of Him and be fully obedient to Him in every way.
Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me apply it! Thank You that I now have a telephone number for my brother. Help me call it at a time when he is close to the phone, and guide our conversation so that it will be fully beneficial to him. Thank You that You are making it clear what I will need to do. Guide in every detail, both the timing and in my doing all that I need to before I leave. Guide in our recognizing and following through with Your perfect plan for Cathy while I’ll be gone, so that it will be a fully beneficial time for us both, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!