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Welcome to the New Mercies Podcast. I am your host, Anthony Caldwell, and this is episode

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number 324. Today is March 18, 2023, and I want to read out of Proverbs 18 today, just

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verse number 2, a simple verse that we can learn from today and think how we are responding

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in our lives. The Bible says this in Proverbs 18, 2, a fool takes no pleasure in understanding,

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but only in expressing his opinion. Another way to translate that verse is that a fool

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takes no hope or no delight in listening, but only in venting. He just wants to vent.

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A fool just wants to talk. They do not want to listen. I know a lot of times it's easy

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for us to see people and say, well, they're just talkers. They just want to talk. They

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just want to hear the sound of their voice. Sometimes it becomes a laughing matter, but

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most of the time we're being honest. We're saying this person being around them is exhausting,

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right? Because we're hearing over and over and over and over again their thoughts, their

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opinions. They don't care what I have to say. They just want to tell me what they know.

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And I know that it's easy to talk about other people that way, but how often do we look

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at ourselves and say, are we listening? Are we taking in understanding or are we just

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venting? Are we just expressing our own opinion? Because it's so easy to tell people what we

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think. It's always easier just to tell somebody what we think than it is to hear and listen.

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Because that term pleasure in understanding means that we're not just listening and hearing

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what they're saying, but we're taking it to heart and beginning to work on ourselves

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because of what they're saying. So a fool doesn't do that. A fool will not listen to

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wise instruction. They will not listen to ways they can become better. However, a wise

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person will. This is the part of the Proverbs that give us a little bit of contrast. If

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we just think a fool does this, then what does a wise person do? They do the opposite.

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A wise person will take much pleasure in understanding, in listening, in asking questions. My way

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to think through this on a daily basis is ask first, speak second. In everything that

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I do, I will ask first and I'll speak second. I want to learn before I share every single

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time. No matter what situation I'm in, I want to learn before I share. Everybody knows something

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I don't know. I've said that for years and years and years. Everybody knows something

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I don't know. So why not learn from every person? Even if somebody is younger than you,

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if someone is less educated than you, they still know things that you don't know. They

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see things you don't see. So let us learn first and speak second. Ask first and speak

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second. If you do that, you will become wise beyond your years.