Waiting for the other shoe to fall
Proverbs 1:33
“But whoever listens to me will dwell safely and will be secure, without fear of evil.”
The word for “listens” is so illuminating- It is the Hebrew word #8085 - shama and it not only means to hear, but it means to obey, and most importantly it means to proclaim or to speak. We know, from context that the “me” in this verse is referring to “Wisdom” and in particular, the wisdom that we receive from God. Therefore, the beginning of the verse can be explained in this way:
Whoever hears, and obeys the wisdom given by God by speaking it out ….
The second half the verse, in my opinion is God speaking directly to the heart of man. How often is it that when we approach God for His direction, His wisdom that we become fearful that stepping out into what He says will bring about trouble. We seem to always “wait for the other shoe to drop” as it were. This is a seed planted by the wicked one in our hearts and minds that he uses to curtail us from following the wisdom of God…. and eventually even listening to or approaching God for help. If the serpent can convince us that something bad happens no matter what we do and that we are going to be attacked no matter what, it is a natural reaction to become gun shy of doing anything to upset the status quo. Personally the wicked one has whispered lies to me in order to back me off of what I know God was telling me to do. He threatened that all sorts of things would go wrong had I listened to God and so I did not at times listen to the wisdom of God. The repercussions of failing to listen to God were far worse than if I had listened and gotten attacked. They were worse because I knew I had done wrong and so when the calamity came, I blamed myself and refused to receive deliverance from the blood of Jesus. This was the spirit of antichrist and caused the evil to be worse and more pronounced. Whereas if I had listened to the wisdom of God and a weapon had been formed against me, my reaction would have been to fight knowing that I was completely innocent of any wrongdoing and therefore would not accept any consequence to the contrary.
The bottom line is this:
When the wisdom of God comes to our hearts and minds and we prove that we have accepted this wisdom as our course of action by stepping out in it and speaking it, then we can rest assured that God will protect us because we listened to Him!!!!!
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