Proverbs 2:2
and the surrounding verses tell us the benefits of “tuning your ear to wisdom,
tuning your heart to understanding” (New Jerusalem Bible). What does
that involve? How do we do that? Three things come to mind: measuring pitch,
adjusting to conform to that pitch, and continually repeating those steps.
Measuring Pitch
The act of tuning first requires
listening to something with perfect pitch. That gives us the standard we are
trying to meet. When we seek wisdom (living our day-to-day lives according to
God’s precepts) we find perfect tone in scripture, as it’s brought home to us
by the Holy Spirit. We are to listen for it by regularly getting into the word,
studying it, and thinking about what it means for how we actually live. We also
hear it in the promptings the Holy Spirit gives in connection with particular
situations. Developing an ear for these things takes some time, but God gives
ample help to those who seek it. See Proverbs
8:17 Wisdom
6:12-17; Sirach
6:19, 27-28; Sirach
14:20; Matthew
7:7-11; Luke
11:9-13; James
1:5.
Tuning also requires listening to
your instrument to see how it compares to perfect pitch. When we seek wisdom, we
compare our lives to the standards set by scripture and the Spirit’s specific
promptings, measuring how close we come to their pitch. That is not nearly as
pleasant as listening to the pitch itself, and can in fact be quite painful at
times, but it must be done and is always worth it in the end. See Sirach
6:19-31; 2 Corinthians
7:8-12; Hebrews
12:11; James
1:2-4; 2
Peter 1:6-7.
Adjusting to
Tone
Recognizing perfect pitch and
differences from it is not enough; one must act to bring the instrument to that
pitch. So it is with wisdom. Once we have identified how our lives differ from
God’s standard we must act to bring ourselves into conformity with that
standard. Sometimes we have to stretch beyond our natural inclinations, the
equivalent of tuning up. Other times we must tune down, stopping or slowing
when we would prefer to act. Both can be hard; we have to do things that don’t
come naturally. But just as the results of a properly tuned instrument are
worth the effort, being tuned to God’s pitch produces benefits that far exceed
the cost of the changes. See Sirach
6:19-31.
Retuning
Anyone who’s played a string
instrument knows that tuning is not a one time task. Instruments fall out of
tune and must be repeatedly monitored and adjusted. So it is with us; we must
regularly, and continually, compare lives with God’s instructions and make the
tunings necessary to conform ourselves to His perfect pitch. There is simply no
avoiding that reality, but there are things we can do to decrease the times we
fall out of tune and the difficulty of retuning.
Just as exposure to loud, discordant,
sounds can take an instrument out of tune, exposure to ungodly influences
(media, profane music, bad company) can pull us away from God’s standards. We
can limit that by limiting our exposure to those influences and seeking to
replace them with Godly ones. See Proverbs 13:20,
22:24-25,
Sirach
6:16-17; Sirach
6:34-37; 1
Corinthians 15:33; Philippians
4:8.
We can limit the difficulty of
retuning by doing so sooner rather than later. It’s easier to retune a mildly
out of tune instrument than one that’s dramatically so, and the same is true of
our lives. We save ourselves significant difficulty by retuning as soon as we
detect a variance from God’s pitch, rather than waiting until we’re far out of
tune. See Sirach
5:7.
