“Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.” (Pr 23:12 AV)
Instruction and knowledge have no value if we are not prepared to use them. The word for ‘instruction’ here means to discipline or chasten the will. This would make complete sense seeing it is our hearts that need this discipline mentioned above. The word for ‘knowledge’ means discernment. This requires an ear that is willing to heed the words, meditate upon the words, and gain an understanding of how they apply in situations that arise. Instruction and knowledge exist with or without our participation. To make them profitable to us, we need to engage. We need to chasten the heart. Desire and our will must come under the dominion of instruction. Knowing the difference between right and wrong matters not if we do not have a heart willing to do what is right. This is the understanding of the word ‘instruction’. It is a willingness to discipline the heart. It is roping in of the desires and chastening our desires under the dominion of what is right. The reason knowledge follows here is compliance is necessary even if we do not understand why. Once we comply with what is right, then knowledge often follows. Discernment comes as wisdom is applied. Again, this also comes down to a willingness. The mind must be opened to the truth learned by the disciplined heart.
I have started down the road of investigating hearing aids. I am finding it more difficult to hear what others are saying. I am becoming a proficient lip reader of late. I also suffer from tinnitus. I have for almost fifty years. Due to a childhood injury, I have had a loud ringing in my right ear for as long as I can remember. Anyway, the journey of investigation has yielded some rather important facts. I learned how the ear works and why aids can be a life-changing aid. I always wonder how amplification improved hearing while protecting the hearing you have. Fascinating. Then I investigated OTC aids and why they may or may not be a good idea. I went to an audiologist for a hearing test and discovered what I already knew. My hearing loss is moderate. But for my age, it's a bit more severe than most. As far as the tinnitus goes, there is no cure. There are only treatments. These treatments vary, but the short of it is, to eliminate things that can aggravate it like blood pressure brought on by stress, and masking the sound by others so your brain is not distracted by the ringing. The thing is, there is no relief unless I am willing to discipline my heart to address the issue even if it seems far-fetched. How can listening to birds chirping, crickets signing, and waves crashing help my tinnitus? But it does!
We read sound wisdom day in and day out when we spend time in the word of God. The Holy Spirit speaks to us. We write down all that we have heard. But it does us no good unless there is a heart that is instructed unto wisdom and the hearing of the mind is willing to patiently wait for the purpose of the wisdom. If we sit on all that we have learned and do nothing with it, what we have learned serves no purpose. We can write our papers. We can sit in the Sunday School class. We can fill in our lessons. We can regurgitate what we already know. But if there is no heart to it, or mind willing to hear, all we have accumulated goes to waste. Solomon is teaching his children. He spends hours upon hours sharing with them all that God has taught him. Yet in the end, with all his wisdom, Solomon had no heart for what he knew to be right. He married strange wives who stole his heart away to pagan gods. All that wisdom was laid to waste because he would not chasten his heart to live according to what God has shown him.
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