Listen

Good Morning,

Psalm 85:8 (NIV)
I will listen to what God the LORD will say;
he promises peace to his people, his saints—
but let them not return to folly.

Once again, this very day, we are being reminded that we need to listen to what God has to say to us. Once again, we are told that we need to listen to Him when He speaks to us. In the second part of this verse He tells us that we can have His peace and that we ought to take care lest we return to "folly." I kind of wondered about that so, as a good student, I looked that up. Here's what Webster has to say: folly: 1. the state or quality of being foolish; lack of understanding or sense. 2. a foolish action, practice, idea, etc.; absurdity. 3. a costly and foolish undertaking; unwise investment or expenditure. 4. Obs. wickedness; wantonness

So, we are being warned against what, exactly? If we are to use these definitions then we are warned against being foolish; lacking real understanding; lacking sense; being foolish in our actions, practices, ideas, and such; being involved in foolish undertakings; and, what this says is painful to read, being wicked or wanton.

God did not put words into the Bible in a random way. We are told definitive and meaningful things everywhere we look in God's Word. Today, this verse of Scripture, is no different from any other.

What I hear from Him is that we need to listen to Him and what He says so that we can have His peace in our lives and so that we will avoid all of the pitfalls that the word "folly" represents. So, the converse is also true. That would be, if we DON'T listen to Him as He speaks to us and into our lives then we will NOT have the peace that He promises and that we WILL probably turn to "folly" in many ways.

Here's the point: We have to listen! We have to open our ears, our minds, our hearts, and our souls to listen to God when He speaks to us! We cannot continue on a road of deafness to God and think that we can avoid what He clearly tells us will happen if we do. One of the songs that I was led to pick for tomorrow's ministry at West Jax Rehab is, "Open My Eyes Lord" and part of the lyric is:

Open my eyes, Lord, I want to see Jesus...
Open my ears, Lord, and help me to listen...

I don't think that it's an accident that God led me, yesterday before I read this verse, to this particular song. You see, He's reminding ME that I have to do better and listening to Him and seeing Jesus around me. In doing this, He's using me to remind you of the same thing.

Do we wish to have His peace? Do we want to avoid the folly that can inundate our lives? The sensible answer would be that we do, of course. Okay. Then in order to do that, we have to listen to what God is saying.

Love, peace, and blessings,

David