Choices Of The Heart Series

I’m going to assume that you all are familiar with a popular little game show called “Let’s Make a Deal.” It’s been on for, like, ever it seems. The “contestants” are offered various “mystery prizes” to choose from. Some of the prizes are really amazing and some of the prizes … well, they’re pretty lame. The “choice” is what makes the game entertaining … watching the contestant struggle with their greed, basically. “Should I take what’s behind the curtain? It could be something really big. Or should I take the little box in front of the host? It could be something really valuable.”

Solomon, who wrote this particular proverb, knows about making choices. One day, God gave Solomon a choice. “At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, ‘Ask what I should give you.’” Can you imagine for just a moment what you would do if God made you such an offer? [Pause.] Solomon’s answer is pretty surprising. He doesn’t ask for long life. He doesn’t ask for power or for wealth. He asks for … “wisdom” … the kind of wisdom that we find in the Book of Proverbs, which … surprise, surprise … as you know, he wrote. God was so pleased with Solomon’s answer that He not only gave Solomon what he asked for, wisdom, but what he didn’t ask for … “riches and honor” … “IF” … if Solomon walked in God’s way, kept God’s statutes and commandments. If Solomon did this, God promised him not only riches and honor but a long life. “If” Solomon chose to walk in God’s way and keep God’s statues and commandments, “then” God would give him what was behind Door #1: wisdom, riches, honor, and long life. And, Solomon did that for awhile and received what God promised … until … well … we’ll return to that later. For now, let us get back to our game show, “Let’s Make a Deal.”

The beginning of Proverbs 2 says that we are to seek ‘wisdom’ like we would seek silver or hidden treasure. You may not know this … or you may … but the audience members … you know, those people all dressed up like Daffy Duck and God knows what … have to audition to be a part of the audience. They come “seeking” … hoping … to be selected to be a part of the audience. Once they are selected to be a part of the audience, they “seek” … they hope … that the host will select them to compete for prizes. Once they are chosen to compete, they “seek” to make the right choice … the money or what’s behind the curtain … what’s in the box or behind Door #3 … and then they hope to be chosen to compete for the big prize at the end.

What we “seek” reveals what we desire. We don’t “seek” pain or suffering … at least I hope you don’t. We don’t’ seek misery or failure, right? We “seek” … we search for … what our heart desires … fame, fortune, peace, joy, wealth, hope, popularity … right?

When Solomon tells us to “seek” wisdom like a hidden treasure … when he tells us to seek wisdom like silver, he’s speaking from experience because he made that choice and knows the rewards of choosing wisdom because he experienced them just as God had promised … and now he’s encouraging us to do the same thing … to choose what God has to offer over what the world has to offer. The difference between what God is offering us and what Wayne Brady on Let’s Make a Deal is offering us is that there is no mystery … no doubt … about what choice we should make and why.

In Proverbs 1, “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks” (vv. 20-21). Here, in Proverbs 2, Solomon, speaking to us as a father would speak to his son, tells us to do the same thing … to “cry out” for insight … to “raise” our voices for understanding … to seek out Wisdom just like Wisdom is seeking us … and the image of Wisdom crying out for us and us crying out for Wisdom paints a beautiful picture of two lovers calling out and seeking the desire of their hearts … God’s heart desiring that our hearts would seek Him and desire him like a hidden treasure or a pearl of great price.

As I said earlier, the game … Let’s Make a Deal … is based on making choices. Believe it or not, the words “if” and “then” are the very basis of the game. “If” you pick Door #1, “then” you get … “if” you pick Door #2, “then” you get. And the same thing is happening in Proverbs 2. “If” you accept my words,” says Solomon (v. 1) … “if” you treasure up my commandments within you (v.1) … “if” you make your ear attentive to wisdom” (v. 2) … “if” you incline your heart to understanding (v. 2) … “if” you indeed cry out for insight (v. 3) … “if” you raise your voice for understanding (v. 3) … “if” you seek wisdom (v. 4) … “if” you seek wisdom like you would search for hidden treasure (v. 4) … “THEN” … “then” you will understand the fear of the LORD … “then” you will find the knowledge of God (v. 5).