listen up

“I’m sensitive about my ears.”   Just so you know, I said this long before Barack Obama did.  I actually quit wearing my long hair in a ponytail over 2 decades ago because of a chemistry professor who came into class every morning, greeted me with “Good morning, Dumbo!” and proceeded to hang his lab coat on my protruding ear! 

Have you ever been in a situation where your ears just stop hearing what is all around you?  Even the biggest of ears, yes like mine, can grow dull to a sound that we become accustomed to over time.  I live in a Colorado Springs neighborhood adjacent to the US Air Force Academy…been here five years.  Small engine planes take off and land all throughout the day but at some point in the last 5 years I quit hearing them.  My ears grew used to the noise and I must have simply blocked it out.  Yet all day this past Monday while sitting in my home office I noticed the strangest sound coming from the Academy…airplanes…taking off & landing, circling near my house.  All week long the noise persisted.  Why now?  What has changed?

Sunday night when I returned home from our skydiving adventure, the roar of the prop plane was still screaming in my brain.  It took several hours for the pressure of the dive to release and my ears to start “popping”.  On Monday morning I awoke with a new sensitivity…to airplane noise.  The roar had been so deafening the day before, that my former “immunity” to the sound of aircraft overhead had vanished. 

That same phenomenon can happen to our spiritual ears as well.  We hear the promptings of the Holy Spirit but when we don’t obey, our ears grow dull {Matthew 13:15; Acts 28:27}, we begin to lose the ability to discern what we are being told.  Eventually, if we ignore the sounds long enough we stop hearing God’s voice altogether.  {Mark 8:18} If we’re fortunate, God will give us a sonic boom to bring us back to our senses.  Sadly, it happens this way often…God whispers only so long and if He starts to lose our attention, He calls His own back with a loud shout.  The shout may come in the form of financial difficulties, a bad report from the physician, divorce papers on the kitchen table, a runaway teen.  Count your blessings that our Lord loves us enough to shout at us.  But wouldn’t we be so much better off if we would simply listen and obey in the first place rather than provoking God to raise His voice at us?  Don’t misunderstand me, harkening to God’s voice & walking in obedience doesn’t exempt us from the aforementioned difficulties…the rain falls on the just and the unjust {Matthew 5:45}…but if we truly listen we can avoid the consequences of the sin of disobedience.  Too, we will know the voice that calls us out of this present darkness and in obedience to His calling we find rest and peace. 

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear…”       {Matthew 11:15, 13:9; Mark 4:9; Luke 8:8, 14:35} “Moreover, he said unto me, Son of man, all the words that I shall speak, unto thee receive in thine heart and hear with thine ears.” {Ezekiel 3:10}