Apply

Prov. 2:2 (NKJV)
So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding;

Inclining our ear to wisdom gives the sense of eavesdropping on the teacher of truth. To have an ear for truth is one thing, but to apply our heart to understanding what we have heard is where the work enters in. I remember a sign that hung in my uncle Bill's stable. It read "We hire people who look for work after they find a job." Finding truth is the easy part, but to put truth to work for us in our lives requires that we know more than just the answer, but why it is right. For instance, I can teach any two year old to say that "2+2=4." This however differs from teaching them to quantify two objects being added in a group to two other object thus leaving us with four objects. If he only learns to parrot the answer, he will not be able to apply the same principles of truth to other situations such as two plus three etc. The same is true with truth, we should not just learn what is right and what is wrong, but why those things are true, and then we will have the wisdom to APPLY the truth to other areas of our lives.