Today when you hear his voice,

don't harden your hearts.

Hebrews 3:7-8

Hebrews 3:15

Hebrews 4:7

Three times in twenty verses. Three promises I'll hear his voice. Three instructions to listen, to accept, to respond. Three reminders that I probably wasn't paying attention the first time anyway.

There are startling similarities to an eighth grade class. I walk around the room as my students work. "Read the instructions," I tell them. "Be sure you're modeling your answers." "I see lots of answers but not many models." Then, as I collect the papers, I hear, "Oh, were we supposed to draw models?"

I did manage to refrain from running screaming down the hall, but after all, it was only second hour. This scene would be repeated every forty-five minutes for the rest of the day.

So what do I tell my students? Desks cleared, sit up straight, eyes on the teacher. Take notes, ask questions, try every problem.

How much better would I listen, how much more would I hear if I cleared off all distractions, sat up straight with my eyes on God, and tackled every challenge?

You will be ever hearing but never understanding,

you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

For this people's heart has become calloused;

they hardly hear with their ears,

and they have closed their eyes.

Matthew 13: 14-15a

It's progress report day. The first tangible evidence of the new year's efforts, anticipated and feared, the promise of a new beginning and the hope of change. The very air feels frozen with tension as I begin to lay out the pages near hands suddenly uninterested in the day's notebook quiz.

The are muffled giggles of delight and gasps of horror. There are frantically raised hands and rustling papers determined to prove that every assignment had been completed after all.

The most desparate, the most shocked, are those students who certain they already know all I have to teach. The question comes daily, from one student or another, the words slightly different, yet so much the same. "We learned this last year." "Why do we have to do this again." I don't do it like that, can't I do it my way?" Ears stopped, eyes closed, beyond learning because they all ready know it all. Sometimes that first report is shock enough to bring a child back to focus, sometimes nothing ever is.

How often am I that stubborn child? Closed to God's leading, sure I know the way, appearing to listen, but silently charting my own divergent path? Open eyes, soft heart, and ever listening ears, the only hope to live the truth.

Wisdom has built her house;

she has hewn out its seven pillars.

She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;

she has also set her table.

Proverbs 9:1-2

The woman Folly is loud;

she is undisciplined and without knowledge.

Proverbs 9:13

Wisdom and Folly side by side, calling from the hills, promising gifts to all who respond.

There's effort in wisdom; hewn pillars, prepared meats and wine, a table set and ready. Focus and learning, with the hope of understanding, inspire the wise to greater heights.

Loud is easier. Attention without effort, words without thought. It captures the mob and flames their passions, increasing the roar of uninformed voices insisting they alone are right.

It's time to hew pillars, to stop, to study, to think; to find and honor wisdom before bursting into undisciplined action.

I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence;

I possess knowledge and discretion.

Proverbs 8:12

Knowledge with discretion. We're packed with knowledge. At a click of the mouse, the awe of a newly discovered comet battles for attention with the best country artist of the last twenty five years. Tar balls travel to the Florida coast, and elections results are predicted before they close the polls. And that's just today. The knowledge pounds from internet screens, radio announcers, constantly scrolling bars across ever present televisions. Does it make us any smarter, any better, any more compassionate, or effective?

I'm not sure there's a lot of discretion to go with that knowledge. Does everything anyone knows really need to be announced to the world? Is everyone's opinion on every comment box adding value to important discussions?

Where do we gain the wisdom? The marriage of knowledge and discretion that lifts the dialogue from gossip to enlightenment, from anger and destruction to the construction of solutions.

There's no easy button, no website of answers, just deep thought, study, and prayer to seek the wisdom of God.

At the window of my house

I looked out through the lattice.

I saw among the simple,

I noticed among the young men,

a youth who lacked judgment.

He was going down the street near her corner,

walking along in the direction of her house

at twilight, as the day was fading,

as the dark of night set in.

Proverbs 7:6-9

Near, in the direction, as the dark of night set in. Where does temptation really begin? It's easy to claim a total ambush; a shock of never considered, carried away, happened in the heat of the moment before I knew where I was.

But there we were walking, eyeing the house, moving a little closer, cozy in the deepening shadows that allow no one to see. Choices begin in the daylight. A simple turn for just a little look, determines a destiny never consciously planned.

Teenagers enthralled with broccoli, proudly comparing pineapples, and lugging enormous watermelons. It's hilarious to watch them so excited about food they wouldn't touch in the cafeteria or glance at twice in a grocery store. So why the sudden charm at a sprawling busy farmer's market?

Autonomy has something to do with it I suppose. It's really a lot of freedom we give them, to wander the market with friends and make their own choices. They check back in surprisingly often. They show off their purchases with pride, but also, I think, feel some security in knowing we're still there, still aware of where they are, still focused what they're doing.

They beg for ten minutes at playground, squealing and jumping like ten years olds, then stagger back to the bus burdened with flowers for their moms, bulging bags full of vegetables, and jaunty plastic sunglasses.

The last few days of eighth grade innocence, nudging at the edge of the chasm of high school.

a voice of one calling in the desert,

Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.

Mark 1: 3

A voice of comfort, a promise of end to oppression,

A voice of terror, the unimaginable power of God.

I imagine the Jews of Jesus day were well familiar with these words from Isaiah, clinging to the hope of freedom from Rome and the vindication of the coming kingdom of God. But what did they mean to the gentiles Mark is believed to be writing to here? A brief history lesson, an authentication through prophecy, a context of Jesus' place and time?

John is prepared in the desert for the ministry he leads.

He prepares in the desert the way for Jesus.

Jesus too, retreats to the desert, to prepare for the ministry that changes the world.

In the desert of life, a voice is calling, what will I do to prepare for the Lord?