Pay attention and listen to the sayings of the wise; apply your heart to what I teach, for it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart and have all of them ready on your lips (Proverbs 22:17-18).

It's time for a reality check:  How much am I really being impacted by this year's intensive study of the Proverbs?  I'm about 80 percent of the way through my day-by-day reflections on the wisdom of Solomon -- but how much am I really getting out of it?  Has it been worth all the time and effort?  Has it really made me any wiser?  Is thisi Proverbs 365 thing actually useful to anyone?  I genuinely wonder sometimes...

The truth is that it sometimes feels like I'm just completing a homework assignment.  I'm just doing the minimum to find a Proverb that I haven't used yet, try to squeeze out 500-750 words, and then get on with my life.  As a result, my reflections can often end up feeling shallow, or overly cerebral.  They might manage to be clever sometimes (though even that doesn't happen as often as I would like), but they're rarely meaningful, heart-impacting, life-changing.  At least not like I would like them to be.

This makes me sad.  I don't want my study of the Proverbs to fall back into duty or religion.  I don't want my time with God to become like I'm punching some sort of time card.  And yet how can it be different?!?  This is the frustration that I find in so many of my life experiences!  Work, ministry, marriage, exercise, healthy eating, study, friendships, parenting... Heartless duty-bound servitude is not good.  But neither is abandonment!  A year in the Proverbs seems to be something of a touchstone for all different types of problems in this same vein.  What can God be trying to teach me in all of this?!?

I want to genuinely pay attention and listen to the sayings of the wise.  I don't want it to just pass through my mind:  in one ear and out the other.  It's not doing anyone any good to just "mail in my performances."  Spiritual homework is almost worse than school homework!  But where can I find the endurance for a sustained soak (and absorption!) in the Proverbs?  How can I regularly pinch myself to stay awake and at attention?  I'm guessing that awareness has a lot to do with it -- but I'm not content to just be aware now and close up this edition of Proverbs 365, feeling better about myself for the rest of the day.  I have to wrestle with this.  I have to figure out a way to not just hear, but listen.

I want to receive and assimilate and enact the wisdom of the Proverbs on a heart level -- not just on the level of my thinking or on the level of a creative writing project.  I want to apply my heart to what is being taught, for it is pleasing when I keep them in my heart and have them ready on my lips in all of my day-to-day interactions.  It's pleasing to me when I have this real, deep, abiding, spiritual connection with the primordial wisdom of the Divine -- but it's also pleasing to the LORD when I allow myself to be transformed by the renewing of my mind.  This is a powerful act of worship which glorifies and gratifies God.  I see this challenge and this tension when confronted with the reality check of Proverbs 22:17-18.  But I'm frustrated by my apparent inability to do much about it.

I wonder if it's good, sometimes, to stew in this frustration... Maybe it sharpens my focus.  Maybe it pounds in a dependence on God.  Maybe it creates a more effective learning environment.  Or maybe it's just my human nature battling it out with the Spirit of God living within me (like it talks about in Romans 7).  In any event, I know that I need a reality check from time to time.  I may not like what I learn from a deeper self-examination, but it's something that I need to know.