Proverbs 8

Proverbs 8 or Proverbs 8 (Amplified)

Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice?

The world makes such a clamor sometimes that it clouds over the truth. We have to constantly ask Father for understanding and wisdom, and for ears to hear the Holy Spirit. The truth we seek will become clear if only we have the right ears to listen.

Recently I was desperately seeking God on whether to do the English Honors thesis. I really don't want to waste my senior year in the library. So many students I talk to spend their college years studying (serving school as their god) and hating it, and then drinking to forget how much they hate it until Monday.

But if Christ is my God, school cannot be. I cannot serve two masters.

At the same time, I knew the thesis would be an awesome experience if I could do it in a way that honors the Lord...if I could be passionate about it, enjoy it, and not view it as a worthless chore...if I would still allow my schedule to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. So I was begging him for guidance, going back and forth on a seesaw of doing it or not.

I was asking the wrong question.

See, what I was asking for was an answer as to whether or not I should do the thesis, but the answer the Holy Spirit was giving was to dedicate everything I do to the Lord, and then my plans will succeed (Prov. 16:3), and also that I can do everything through Him who gives me strength (Phil. 4:13). I tend to overlook those verses because they're so popular and often used as an excuse for following our own plans instead of God's...but they're in His Word. Meaning they're important and they will speak wisdom and truth to me if I let them. God was reminding me how much He loves me, and that since I want to please Him above all else, he won't let me make a decision that does not please Him.

On the heights along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand.

The heights. That is where wisdom lives. Any path that climbs upward, towards God, will meet wisdom as well. Therefore, whatever guidance you seek, keep looking up, toward Him, and not around you. Don't listen to the clamor of the world, even when it seems right.

To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.

It's interesting that the first two evils mentioned are pride and arrogance. Fear of the Lord leads to humility, and yet we are constantly taught to be prideful. This also means that pride and arrogance lead one away from wisdom, because wisdom HATES these things. If you want the Lord's wisdom, you have to demolish all the walls that keep God from leading you to change. Because that's what God does - He changes us, constantly, and a prideful person believes such changes are unnecessary.

What's amazing to me is how much wisdom loves humans, though we have constantly spurned her:

The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old; I was fashioned from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began.... I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above.... Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.

Wow. I can't believe how beautiful that is. Can you imagine being by God's side, watching as he creates things day after day? Isn't it humbling to hear that Wisdom rejoiced in us?

"Fashioned from eternity." So wisdom is literally the stuff of eternity; it was made from permanence. Truth is forever. Literally. What a blessing that we have so much of eternity here in this transient world, and yet how little we value the stuff of eternity compared to that which is temporary. How little we value the truth and how highly we prize shallow happiness when we could have eternal joy. I said the other day, "I don't worry about my friends who are seeking the truth, because I know their search will eventually lead them to Jesus. I worry about my friends who are seeking happiness." Jesus says that if we seek, we will find, and in the Old Testament Wisdom says,

Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the Lord. But whoever fails to find me harms himself;
all who hate me love death.

How much more meaningful that last line is in light of wisdom being made from eternity. Wisdom is life - eternal life. Death is made of lies, of deceit. It's what first brought death into the world.

And yet do we sit at Wisdom's doorstep, patiently waiting for her to open the door and give us life? Or do we pound on it for a minute, cry if she doesn't give an immediate or satisfactory answer, and then run off and do our own thing?

How often do we do that to God?