Altha and I live very near the “Caltrain” railroad tracks. To say that dozens of commuter trains blaring their horns as they pass by every work day (and less often on nights and weekends) makes for disagreeable background noise would be an understatement. But over the years we have learned NOT to pay attention to the noisy trains. There’s nothing wrong with our ears; but by way of practice, we have “dulled” them to the intrusive sounds.
The writer of Hebrews warns the Jewish believers they had become “dull of hearing” (5:11). What does “dull of hearing” mean. It means they were practiced in not paying attention! The opposite of “dull” is sharp—our human faculties are sharpened by using and practicing them, like any discipline.
How can we prevent our hearing from becoming dull? How do we sharpen our listening skills? The obvious answer is: by paying attention. Even as Altha and I have learned to ignore the sounds of trains, Christians can practice ignoring the voice of the Holy Spirit. Sharpening your listening skills must be cultivated. It must be deliberate and consistent. The writer admonishes these Hebrew Christians to pay much closer attention to the things they heard. (2:1)
And finally, speaking through Isaiah, Jesus says: “The Lord wakens my ear morning by morning, to listen like one being taught; He has opened My ear; and I was not disobedient…” (Is. 50:4-5). In other words, even Jesus disciplined himself to listen and pay attention.
If you are not hearing the Lord, maybe you're not listening!
Greg,
ReplyDeleteWe humans have a tendency to mix our senses up when it comes to spiritual matters. Case in point, we allow what we see to interpret what we hear. If we see injustice (or have suffered it ourselves), when God speaks to us about that injustice we may, instead of positioning ourselves to hear from God, be rather looking for someone to blame for that injustice. Since God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent He usually gets the nod for all kinds of blame because He alone is equipped to have been able to prevent the injustice from having occured.
Our eyes are so fixed on what we have witnessed that we interpret God's response as less than adequate, even though He is first to comfort our hearts in our grieving. We don't want comfort just now; we want justice! So we don't "hear" what God was saying to us because we are currently occupied with focusing blame; our vision plugs our ears.
Contrast this fleshly tendency with the the state of mind exemplified by David in Psalm 32!
Stan
There is none so blind as he who will not see and none so deaf as he who will not listen.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of blind people... they know that because they cannot see, they must develop a hightened senstivity in hearing! We should all recognize that!