The King's Daughter—Part 3—Attention Please
Psalm 45
Kings' daughters are among Your honorable women;
At Your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir.
Listen, O daughter,
Consider and incline your ear;
Forget your own people also, and your father's house;
So the King will greatly desire your beauty;
Because He is your Lord, worship Him.
And the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift;
The rich among the people will seek your favor.
The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace
Her clothing is woven with gold.
She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors;
The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to You.
With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought;
They shall enter the King’s palace.
— Psalm 45:9-15
Sometimes, one of the most significant challenges for women is believing they are loved. Many of us have spent much of our lives trying to convince ourselves we are truly loved through the drama of our relationships.
On this leg of my journey, I have concluded that true, eternal, everlasting love can only be realized through a relationship with our Father in Heaven through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Some of us have entered into that relationship but have not truly understood our position as the King's daughters or fully grasped the emotional depth of His love. This understanding is God's will in Christ Jesus.
... that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
— Ephesians 3:17
This lesson focuses on our role in our relationship with the Father and details our obligation to listen to Him and value what He says. Listening to the Father is the real heart of worship.
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Listen
"Listen. Consider and Incline Your Ear."
In Hebrew, a portion of Scripture called the "Shema שמע" concerns listening or hearing. The "Shema שמע," meaning "listen," is the following.
“Hear שמע, O Israel:
The LORD our God, the LORD is one."
— Deuteronomy 6:4
If we could personalize this, we might interpret it as God's request for our undivided attention. He is calling us to listen to Him and no one else.
Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.
— Deuteronomy 4:39
Another noteworthy point about the word "Shema" is that it implies obedience. It is not passive listening. It requires our involvement, assuming something valuable, meaningful, and relevant is about to be said.
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Consider
"Listen. Consider and Incline Your Ear"— Psalm 45:10
The next word, "consider," in Hebrew is most often translated as "see" and means to "look at," "view," and "behold." It can also mean to "choose," "prefer," or "aim at."
God not only asks us to come and hear Him but also to turn our faces toward Him, look at Him, and see ourselves reflected in His eyes. We are the apple of His eye. Does He have a place in our field of vision? He invites us to come and take a look.
It also means to perceive, understand, learn, and know. When experience and circumstance have trained our perceptions otherwise, we must learn God's love.
This word can imply enjoying and living in what is seen. The evidence of what we are looking at plays out in the field of our lives. Do our lives reflect those of "dearly loved children" (Eph 5:1)?
Gesenius' Lexicon defines it as "to be pleased with what you see and to have regard and respect for it and to choose it for yourself." His truth about us must be chosen. We often wait for something to fall on us or just happen. Here, He tells us we must choose it.
Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon also implies the idea of expecting.
The Hebrew word picture for "see" is descriptive of these principles:
Resh ר
You shall have no other gods before Me.— Deuteronomy 5:7
To "see" Him, we must see only Him.
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
— Luke 14:26
This verse is about priority. God is to be more important to us than any other relationship we have. God's perspective should matter most.
Aleph א
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate.— Genesis 3:6
She was led by what she fixed her eyes upon.
Visuals are a powerful influence. What we see profoundly affects what we do, how we feel, and who we are. Dr. Lynell Burmark, a Ph.D. Associate at the Thornburg Center for Professional Development and writer of several books and papers on visual literacy, said:
"... unless our words, concepts, and ideas are hooked onto an image, they will go in one ear, sail through the brain, and go out the other ear.
Seeing is believing. God is asking us to see what He is saying about us and to us. "Aleph א" also represents the "will." Again, we see that we choose what we see and how we see it.
Hey ה
But as it is written:“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,Nor have entered into the heart of manThe things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
— 1 Corinthians 2:9-11
The whole idea of being restored to our positions in paradise involves uncovering what has been hidden and that we were created in His image.
Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.
— Proverbs 29:18
When we can't see our value or purpose, we become aimless and thoughtless toward life, relationships, and ourselves.
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Incline Your Ear
... incline your ear ...
To incline our ear is to stretch it toward Him. To turn our ears toward Him implies that we are reaching for what is being said. When I listen to something I desperately want to hear, whether it is music, a message, or a loved one's voice, I turn my ear toward them so I might catch everything. I don't want to miss a thing.
Hearing and seeing are vital to our comprehension. Studies suggest that people retain 10% of what they hear in an oral presentation, 35% from a visual presentation, and 65% from a visual and verbal presentation.
Isn't it significant that He implores us to both hear and see? He wants us to understand His love for us.
... that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
— Ephesians 3:17-19
© 2011 Tamarajo
Links to all Parts of This Series
The King's Daughter—Part 1—Back to Eternity
The King's Daughter—Part 2—Your Preciousness and Worth
The King's Daughter—Part 3—Attention Please
The King's Daughter—Part 4—Spheres of Influence
The King's Daughter—Part 5—Worship Him
The King's Daughter—Part 6—Our Power and Influence
Sources
(1) michaelsearles.blogspot.com/2010/10/3-steps-to-billion-dollar-business.html
(2) osha.gov/doc/outreachtraining/htmlfiles/traintec.html
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