The Bit in the Middle!!

(Another one from my archives! Back in 2007, I was doing a study in Proverbs. This was from chapter 2. I thought it seemed to fit so well in the middle of the James study. And re-reading these posts has been good for me. Sometimes we can forget the things we've learned before.)
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Creamed biscuit, pearl oyster, walnut, wheat kernel, tarnished silver, full memory stick, birthday present…

… they all have something in common!!

They all have something special that has to be uncovered… something that’s hidden. A treasure!!! The best part of them is on the inside or underneath, which all reminds me of what Solomon said about wisdom.

“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures….” (Proverbs 2:1-4, ESV)

Notice how it says to receive and treasure wisdom, and a bit later it says to seek and search for it like hidden treasure.

And as I was thinking about it, I thought that’s like what we photo nuts do often when we take photographs. Like, a friend of mine will crawl around on the damp ground in the spring time, getting his jeans all muddy, just to search for tiny wildflowers, that everyone else would tread on. And me? I recently had a ball down at the beach in the middle of winter, scampering among the rock pools looking for the seaside treasures.

In all that, one thing has struck me… treasures are not always obvious. Hidden treasures are always inside or under something. We can even have the treasure in our hand and not even know it. To appreciate a treasure, we have to know what we’re looking for and then look inside.

So, going back to the passage in Proverbs, notice how it starts with receiving and valuing wisdom, and finishes with seek and searching. But yet there’s a lot of stuff in the middle, which basically says to…

… LISTEN UP!! Prick up your ears. Then apply what you’ve heard to your heart. And when you don’t know, cry out for discernment and understanding.

Hey, isn’t that really wisdom in a nutshell? Isn’t that the centre of the treasure…. the cream in the middle… and the pearl in the oyster … the diamond in the rock? That is the precious and sweet bit.
And the result is….

“….then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.” (Proverbs 2:5, ESV)

… which takes me back to what I started with about a month ago, and that is… “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” (Proverbs 1:7)