LEARNING TO SEE WITH THE HEART (PROVERBS 24.30-34)
INTRO
The reality is that we are often blind to things that we aren’t paying attention to. We must train ourselves to
pay attention.
This is especially true for our spiritual life. If we aren’t deliberate about paying attention to know truth,
chances are that we’ll not spot it. If we aren’t intentional about the kind of attitudes that will help us navigate
life, we won’t (sort of) drift into learning these attitudes. We won’t drift into wisdom.
There’s a posture to life that helps us gain insight and understanding. There’s a method for acquiring wisdom.
And that method can be described as ‘seeing from the heart’. When we learn to ‘see from the heart’, we too
become wise.
PASSAGE:
So, let’s look at our passage from Proverbs to see what it can teach us about ‘The Wisdom Method’.
Proverbs 24.30-34 (NIV):
THE PASSAGE SUMMARISED
The moral of this passage is that:
poverty creeps over a lazy person just like weeds creep over a neglected field – just like bandits creep
over a torn down wall.
Now do remember this is a proverb.
THE WISDOM METHOD
What do I mean by ‘seeing with the heart’? Where do I get that language from?
Let’s look at verse 32:
I applied my heart to what I observed
and learned a lesson from what I saw:
2
The wise person is engaging the heart to what is observed and seen. I’m going to say more about what exactly
that means in a minute.
THE LOCATION OF WISDOM
Here’s the first thing: ‘seeing with the heart’ means that you are truly open to gain insight whatever place you
might be in at the moment (verse 30).
Listen to Proverbs 1.20-22 says:
Wisdom comes to us in the most ordinary situations of life (when you are walking along by a field, when you
are driving a car, when you are interacting with your work, when you are making a cup of tea). Whatever
place you may find yourself in, that’s the place God teaches us wisdom.
Do you have an openness to be taught by God?
And that’s the first observation about the Wisdom Method, of learning to ‘see from the heart’: Every situation
is a teaching moment to learn wisdom.
BEING TRANSFORMED, NOT JUST INFORMED
Here’s the second thing you want to know about The Wisdom Method. Now this is really the crux of the
matter. This is really what ‘seeing with the heart is all about’. Let me take you back to verse 32:
Until all that we experience is applied to our lives, we haven’t really learned to ‘see with our hearts’. We
haven’t really gained wisdom.
What informs us must transform us for good, for God. That’s what it means to ‘see with the heart’. When you
‘see with the heart’, you show a willingness to be transformed for the glory of God and for your good. You
show a willingness to learn wisdom in every situation.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FOOLISH AND THE WISE
Let’s go back to verse 30 where we meet the fool. In the NIV translation he’s also someone who’s described
has having ‘no sense’.
In the Hebrew, the phrase that is translated as ‘having no sense’ is literally, ‘lacking heart’. Unlike the wise
person, the fool, is unwilling to draw a lesson (32) for life from what he goes through.
3
You see until you’re being informed to be transformed, you aren’t really ‘seeing with your heart’. You aren’t
really living like a wise person.
WISE FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS
And yet, with all that available information, we aren’t wiser until we start ‘seeing with the heart’, until we
start asking the question: How Does All that Information – How do all our experiences transform us?
Here’s what Proverbs says is the goal of wisdom. Let me go back to Chapter 1 where the purpose of this book
is stated:
Proverbs 1.1-3:
The Book of Proverbs puts it like this: the goal of a wise person is that they are transformed into someone
who acts righteously according to God’s standards, into someone who acts with justice (as God defines
justice), into someone who acts with a deep sense of fairness to all (in the way God defines equity).
CONCLUSION
Or as the Book of Proverbs would put it, ‘Nothing about being clever means that you’re really ‘seeing life from
the heart’. Nothing about having vast amounts of knowledge, information or even experiences means that
you are going to be wiser for it’.