A Listening Heart

It's Tuesday morning and high time to get rid of Sunday's LA Times. I confess that I don't read a lot of it but thought I'd better flip through before I put it in the recycling. There's a huge section on the latest films that have come out (yes, this really is entertainment city). In real estate I notice that Aldous Huxley's house on Mulholland Drive is for sale for just under $3 million (he died in the 60's but his wife died last December). The lots that he used to live on (the house burned down) recently sold for just over a million. There's advice on how to make a killing by getting good things at estate sales. Lots of pages devoted to style and fashion, most of which make me wonder whatever happened to beauty.

After I had disposed of the paper, I poured a cup of coffee and settled down with my Bible. I've been reading Nehemiah (did you know his name means "Yahweh consoles"? I love that) and thinking about his prayer in chapter 1. It reminded me of Daniel's prayer (Daniel 9). As often happens, one thought and passage leads to another and I turned to Solomon's prayer in I Kings 3. In 3:9 Solomon asks God for "an understanding heart". Another translation calls it "a listening heart". A heart that listens to God. Psalm 25:14 says that "the secret of the Lord is for them that fear Him." Another translation has that as "the secret converse of the Lord". From these verses I was getting a picture of a special quality of heart that is tuned in to and made privy to the thoughts of God. I turned to Keil and Delitzsch to see how they render the Hebrew for "secret of the Lord". As is often the case, their explanation of the Hebrew sheds buckets of light. The root word means "to be or to make tight, firm, compressed". In the context it means "being closely pressed together for the purpose of secret communication and converse, confidential communion or being together...He (God) opens his mind without any reserve, speaks confidentially with those who fear Him...it is used of the imparting of not merely intellectual, but experimental knowledge...it is intended of the rich and deep and glorious character of the covenant revelation."

Men like Nehemiah, Daniel, David and Solomon experienced this "secret converse of the Lord". How much more could I, with the indwelling Holy Spirit, experience each day the rich, deep and glorious character of God's fellowship? It's what Jesus called "abiding in Me". All that is required is a heart that listens. To listen means, however, that I silence my soul so I can hear Him. How much more valuable to hear His thoughts and secret communication than to know the latest real estate prices. As Amy Carmichael wrote:

What do I know of listening? O my Father,
Teach me in silence of the soul to gather
Those thoughts of Thine that, deep within me flowing,
Like currents of a river, guide my going.