Watching and Waiting for Wisdom

“Heed (pay attention to) instruction and be wise, and do not ignore or neglect it. Blessed [happy, prosperous, to be admired] is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts. For whoever finds me (Wisdom) finds life and obtains favor and grace from the Lord. But he who fails to find me or sins against me injures himself; all those who hate me love and court death.” (Proverbs 8: 33-36, AMP)

We have a beagle/jack russel mix named Archie. When we got him, he was only about 8 or 9 weeks old. At first, whenever we got in the car, he was always skittish, probably expecting that he was either going back to the shelter where he was trained and cared at before he came to us, or going off to another family.

Every time we left him home alone, he would have anxiety; crying and crying and chewing up objects in a blind panic. Probably because he didn’t trust us to come back. Eventually, Archie got used to the idea: He was staying with us. We were his people. 

Now, almost five years later, he’s mellowed out a little, but he still eagerly awaits us by the door. He has a couch to sit on, treats to tide him over, and run of the whole house, and he still chooses to sit and pine out the window or post up at the door for us to return. 

In Proverbs 8, Solomon urges his son yet again to heed instruction. We should eagerly watch for it, gazing daily after it at the city gates and waiting at the doorposts. Wisdom is something to be wistfully searching for coming down the road, just like Archie sits patiently at the window for his people to come home. 

Righteous wisdom is something to be sought after. So much so that Solomon constantly and vehemently pleads with his son to listen, to understand, to seek wisdom. 

Solomon is most likely an echo of his father, David. “In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly” (Psalm 5:3, NIV). The Psalms are full of verses like this one, about waiting on the Lord. Watching after him. Spending the day in devotion and eagerly looking for His answers. 

Even in Psalm 130, which has no author attributed, but gives us further illustration of this diligent and disciplined process of watching and waiting for wisdom– for God Himself– to hear, to learn, and to understand more of the Father.

Indeed, David understood that this everlasting, deep, and righteous wisdom was akin to the Lord Himself. To wait on wisdom was to sit at God’s feet with wide eyes and open hands, ready to learn whatever He had for us at that moment.

“I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” (Psalm 130, 5-6, AMP)

What the author of this psalm says here is echoed in Solomon’s exhortation to wait on God and glean His knowledge: Our whole being should be up to the task. We don’t wait with one eye on the garden gate and another on our TikTok feed. We don’t watch for or soak up the wisdom God extends to us with one hand on the front door, ready to open it, and the other busy doing something else. 

This act of watching and waiting– of seeking and finding– is not a passive or multi-tasking type of activity. It’s a whole state of being. We need to be eagerly expecting God to speak and teach. We need to put our whole selves into watching like a guard on the nightwatch or a hostess waiting for her guests to arrive. 

Solomon makes it a point to say that those who devote themselves to this task is blessed. Blessed with wisdom gained; blessed with knowing Christ Himself. That person is not only to be admired by his or her community, but that person is truly happy. There is joy in knowing God, in waiting on Him, that cannot be found anywhere else in this world. 

There is no thing we could buy, no promotion we could get, no relationship we could have, and no amount of success that could compare to knowing God. Those that seek Him find life and favor and grace. That life is not only eternal life living with God, but also a better quality of life here on earth. With God and His wisdom, we find a better quality of life in honoring and obeying Him than we could find in the most indulgent pleasures of this world. 

When we wait for God, we find grace. When we study His Word and ask for His wisdom, we find favor. This pursuit of wisdom is not to be intelligently superior or academically prestigious. It is so that we can know more of the Creator God that made us; the Savior that died and came to life in order so we could know His grace. 

And for those that fail to seek wisdom so diligently, they find the opposite. Those who fail to watch for God and to train their eye to follow Him, injure themselves. It is a great loss and a deep failure to be content to be separate from God. It means destruction to our own lives. Solomon says quite plainly that all who hate God court death. In other words, they flirt with their own destruction. They give chase to their own death.

So what are we? Are we a people who love our cheap pleasures at the expense of God’s glory? Or are we a people who seek after God, no matter the cost? 

Because when we come home and Archie finally sees us, you can bet he’s coming as fast as he can to say, “Hello! Welcome back! Where on earth have you been?”

It should be the same for us. When God comes through our door, and He at last speaks to us and gives us the wisdom we so meticulously sought after, we should rush to meet Him. We should give Him the exuberance He deserves and we should feel our excitement to know Him and search His Word grow and grow and grow.