Hard of Hearing

"you have not listened... you have not listened... 

you did not listen... you have not listened..."

Jeremiah 25:3, 4, 7, 8

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, about listening and hearing.  Do you ever find that as you ponder a topic, it keeps coming up?

For instance:  I voiced a complaint recently, to my doctor's office.  I had a very nice conversation with the office manager, but at the end of it, she was not able to do for me what I had wanted.  Despite that, I told her ~ and I really meant it! ~ that I truly appreciated just being heard.

Do you have people in your life who, when you talk to them, really don't seem like they are hearing you?  Some folks seem to do all the talking, which means they aren't doing any listening.  Or there are those who let you take your turn, but they don't really hear you.  Their focus never changes from what they want to say, or what they are thinking.  People who never utter the words, "oh really?" because they aren't even paying attention to your words.  I've got friends that I know that any conversation with them is going to be one-sided, and I just resign myself to it.  You can't change other people, so I just change my expectations.

Recently, I even had a friend who, when I walked up to her to tell her something I think she would have wanted to hear, said to me:  "Not now," and walked off.  Now, I'm sure she was just in a hurry, but she was so uninterested I couldn't finish my sentence!  How's that for not feeling heard?

With all of these thoughts in my head, I noticed a couple of things on the subject.  The first was some lyrics in a worship song we did in church recently.  There's a line that says "You are thinking of me; You hear me when I call."  I felt so reassured by that reminder.  Not only is He listening when we talk to Him, He's waiting for us!  I just love the image in my head of sitting down to chat with my Abba Father, and hearing Him say, "There you are!  I was just thinking about you!"  Oh what a joyful feeling that would be!  Unfortunately, I can't actually hear Him saying it, but I can know that it's true.

The other thing that happened was sitting down and reading Jeremiah 25.  That's the source of today's verse, at the top of this column.  God was getting ready to punish the Israelites, and the reason was:  they didn't listen.  I can feel annoyed, or even hurt when someone doesn't listen to me, but it's nothing compared to the mistake I'm making if I don't listen to Him.

I try very hard to be a good listener, to my hubby and my kids, and to my friends, but my bigger responsibility is listening to Him.  Primarily, that means reading the Bible with an ear to know how He wants me to apply it to my life ~ like this passage in Jeremiah.   The other lesson for me is to know that really, it shouldn't matter that much if I feel heard by people in my life.  It's enough for me to know that He hears me.

~ "Whoever has ears, let them hear" ~

Matthew 13:9