Are we listening?

One of my biggest pet peeves is listening. Anyone who knows me knows that I find listening skills to be of the utmost value. In fact, while in marriage counseling, we had to take the “5 Love Languages” quiz to see which ‘love language’ we are and it turns out that my love language is ‘quality time.’ When I first saw this result, I thought “yeah right. I really enjoy my time away from people” (I often enjoy doing things on my own.) But after closer examination of what ‘quality time’ means, I learned that there is a mighty difference between ‘quality time’ and ‘quantity time.’ Applied to my life: I enjoy being alone (sometimes), but when I am with people, I want it to be quality—i.e. full attention by all parties in conversation, doing something together memorable, and…fully listening and engaged.

But what does it mean to ‘listen to God’? We often hear this phrase thrown about in church circles. We are trying to figure out what our next move in life is—“Have you heard from God?” We are trying to decide on whether or not to transfer jobs—“ What is God telling you?” We wonder if we should really get married, have a baby, etc. etc.—“What is God laying on your heart?”

God tells us “He who has an ear, let him hear” 16 times in the New Testament (8 times in the Gospels and 8 times in Revelation). This is the instruction that Jesus stressed the most in his earthly ministry.

In the study that I am doing on Revelation, Mike Bickle teaches that there are five implications behind God’s call to let us hear:

1)      It signaled that the truth being proclaimed was extremely important to Jesus.

2)      It calls us to pay careful attention to what Jesus is saying and that there is more than what is immediately obvious to our human eyes. We must not be content with understanding only what is on the surface. Jesus is calling us to diligently focus on pursuing the deeper truth being set before us.

3)      It takes the supernatural help of the Holy Spirit to grasp it. The unaided mind of even a devoted believer will not be able to automatically comprehend the truth being set forth. Jesus is making it clear it is beyond our natural ability. Jesus wants us to ask the Spirit for help.

4)      He most often gave this exhortation related to eternal rewards. Every time Jesus spoke of one of the 22 eternal rewards, He warned us to have ears to hear, because it takes supernatural insight to grasp the 22 rewards (which I will post tomorrow). When reading each reward, pray, “Lord, show me more.”

5)      It takes a focused determination to lay hold of the truths being referred to. We do not automatically respond in a deep and sustained way to them. It will take a tenacious commitment to maintain these truths in our lives long-term because of our propensity to lose touch with them.

It is interesting to note that the five implications that Mike mentions concerning Jesus’ exhortation to “hear” can be applied to our day-to-day listening abilities amongst our friends and co-workers. Read over those five bold implications and think about how they are applied to our human listening skills. We listen because something is extremely important. Because something is extremely important we pay careful attention so as not to miss any detail. We may occasionally need help to comprehend what is being told to us and therefore we may seek out references. Because we are careful in listening, we receive rewards whether it is with good grades, growing friendships, obtaining trust, etc. And finally, we must be determined in order to continue with our good listening skills. Listening is not always an easy task and therefore we must work at it continually in order to perfect it.

In the same way that we listen to friends, teachers, parents, and bosses, we must also listen to God. If at first you do not fully comprehend His voice, ask for clarification.

So what or who are we listening to? I believe listening skills have been forgotten. In 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th grade we had to take tests on our listening comprehension. As we became older we were still tested on comprehension, but not necessarily on listening comprehension. Our society is so inundated by media and technology that we have forgotten what is going on around us. We talk to people as they stare at their phones. We try and explain things to our friends as they are glued to the TV. Music is so noisy in the car that we don’t even communicate in those close proximities anymore. While I was working in D.C., I would take public transportation to and from work for hours each day. Not once did I get to sit down and talk with someone about their life because of their intense focus on their laptops, their iPods, or their newspaper. Not that media and technology itself is necessarily evil, but we tune out the rest of our lives to focus on those things. We need to refocus and realize that we are missing so much around us because we are not listening anymore due to distractions.

My challenge for the day (for myself) is to disconnect from the buzzing noises around me and to refocus on God first and foremost and secondly on those things and people directly around me (i.e. not on the computer, phone, TV).

-His Beloved Son, Ricky