You're listening to Encounter, a simple daily podcast made possible by listeners like

you.

We hope to help you discover sacred moments in the middle of ordinary days.

If you would enjoy more seasonal and topical meditations, I encourage you to download

the encountering piece mobile app where all of the meditations are free as they should be.

Have you ever seen a child use bumper pads when bowling to keep the ball from going into

either gutter?

It's funny watching the bowling ball roll down the lane, bouncing between each bumper.

And it's never a soft bounce, a 16-pound ball crashing back and forth between each side

of the lane, making a little forward progress, if at all.

Do your thoughts ever feel like that, crashing between madness and logic, banging back

and forth between silliness and wisdom?

While the theme of this meditation from Proverbs chapter 15 is learning to listen, learning

to listen to the gentle, true, forward path of wisdom that God shares through his word

and the wise counsel of the godly.

So to begin your meditation, slip into a time and a space to be still and quiet, a place

to be receptive to wisdom, a place to consent to surrendering this very moment to God,

hear it in Son, trusting in the divine presence in the wisdom that is yours to behold.

Start by listening and responding to this prayer from 1st John chapter 2, and respond

heavenly Father, help me listen to wisdom.

Don't love the world or anything that belongs to the world.

If you love the world, you cannot love the Father.

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