Proverbs 4:20 “the way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble”

It was early on a Saturday morning. I worked at the local fish farm during the week, and sometimes on Saturdays and Sundays, but not today. I had a day off. The sun was up, the sky was blue and hardly a sound was heard, just the faint noise of the river in the distance and an odd chirp from the early bird, but even they were quiet this morning. The village I lived in was a slow starter most days, but on Saturdays, it was generally even slower.

There is a story where a couple of Spanish visitors were down at the shore talking with two local hardies who were repairing their nets. The Spanish visitors said to the men, “we have a saying in our country, “manana, manana!” which means tomorrow, we do it tomorrow”, and they went on to ask the men if they had anything like that here in the Highlands. The story goes that the two local’s rubbed their beards slowly for a minute or two deep in thought before they answered saying, “no, nothing as urgent as that”. Well, that was my village on Saturdays for sure.

I packed a bag with some food, filled a flask with hot soup, grabbed my climbing boots, and a warm jersey tied around my waist, out the door and walked briskly in the chilly morning air.

 I was heading for a climb, to a local hill, Sgurr an Utha. There was a short walk-in along a forest road, and then I decided to do the straight up the side approach, no messing about today picking out the easiest way up. It was steep in places, I can still remember hanging on to bits of rock, looking straight down between my legs at what was now a tiny thin black strip of the road down below. Breathing hard, loving these moments, I kept pushing on until I reached the top.

It was still early morning when I got to the summit, the sky was blue, not a sound to be heard, stillness. The views were out towards the Atlantic Ocean and also over the further inland remote glens of the area.  I lay down on my back in the fresh summer grass and rested. Staring up at the sky. After a few minutes, I noticed I had a small speck in my eye and kept rubbing at it to get rid of it, but it was stubborn and would not go away.

Lying still for a few moments, staring still upwards, I realised that the speck was actually a Golden Eagle way up high above me, soaring on the morning air currents as the sun warmed the earth. It would see out to the ocean much farther than I could, and it could also spot a mouse moving on the long grass beside me.

There is an effort attached to seeking God, and His ways, but there is a stillness as well, and it’s here we find the moments when we understand things we have never seen before, we catch a glimpse of the bigger picture, or we see details that will help us on the journey. Something that in our life may seem like an irritation, becomes an opportunity for wonder and new vision.

 

 

KNOWLEDGE

This is the thirteenth time in a hundred and eleven verses that we are reminded of the relationship between writer and listener, between orator and hearer, and between originator and receiver. There is a continual emphasis on the relational, the development is grounded in dependency, the growth is predicated on grace, and the focus is on the family.

The phrase “incline your ear” appears seventy-six times in the bible, all in the Old Testament [ESV]. My personal favourite is in 2Kings 19:16 where Hezekiah, back to the wall, surrounded by a massive, brutal, invading army, takes the written word of the enemy up to the temple, spreads it out before God and prays the most beautiful and powerful prayer….”Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he sent to mock the living God”.

Just as we call out to God in times of pressure, distress and pain, asking God to hear our cry (or sometimes in our desperation we ask “if” He hears our cry),  so God in the relationship wants us to incline our ears, He calls out to us as a loving father, to stretch our listening, to lean in with all we have, every ounce of focus, strength, passion, and belief; to what he says; to every single word he says. He wants us to listen to Him, the way we want Him to listen to us.

 

 

UNDERSTANDING

Let’s pick one word from this verse to look closer at and see if that can help us gain a deeper insight into how God would love us to live?

The word for “sayings” in Hebrew is pronounced as ” ’emer”. This word is found 48 times in the Old Testament, and is translated in the ESV into the English words, fawns; words; answers; decreed; speeches; and, sayings. Webster’s Bible Dictionary has this word “saying” as a “proverbial declaration”.

 

 

WISDOM: what voices have priority in your life today?

 

 

STRENGTHS THOUGHT: Achiever and Connectedness as a Theme Dynamic. Your will be done on earth Father as it is in heaven.

 

 

Allan’s Unauthorised Version – [My beloved child who I discipline and train, mark well the things I speak about, come close and listen. Bend closer, extend yourself to my every spoken word and declaration.]

 

 

PRAYER: Father, thank you for today. Help me to genuinely adopt this position of extending myself, of inclining every part of me towards you and to deliberately and intentionally come closer each day to your words with the pre-conceived understanding of wholehearted obedience. Thank you.

 

 

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