The (Lost) Art of Listening
One of my struggles in recovering from a stroke is the inability to distinguish between listening and hearing. A properly functioning brain knows, for example, how to singularly listen to another person’s voice when having a conversation with them, while only hearing all the surrounding sounds and noises. My brain, as it continues to re-wire itself, wants to actively listen to all the sounds it hears, near and far, which creates overstimulation and chaos in the auditory cortex of my brain’s temporal lobe. What follows that chaos is often not pretty.
[As a side note, I am taking up painting as a form of art therapy; a way to interpret, express, and resolve the chaotic mess that my brain is trying to process.]
Hearing is the passive perception of sounds. Listening is the intentional action of comprehending the sounds heard. Hearing can be done without thinking, thus, it is an inactive word, whereas listening is active, you must think about what you are doing.
Let’s be honest. With all the noise in us and around us, it is difficult to truly listen, even if your brain is functioning properly. It is hard to pay attention to what is, or at least should be, our focus at any particular moment. Not only does the noise and clutter impede us truly listening to the voice of others, isn’t it true that as we “listen” to them, rather than intently processing what we hear, we are sometimes thinking about our response, our answer, our rebuttal.
Our Father wants us to talk to Him, but as importantly, maybe even more so, He wants us to listen as well. We must first be able to not only hear His voice, but also then listen (discern) to it as well. While it is true that God very rarely “talks” to us as someone else talks to us, in an audible voice, God does speak to us. God speaks to us today in several ways; some of which are through His Word, through His Son Jesus, through nature, through other people, through music, through life circumstances and daily activities, through the Holy Spirit, and through prayer.
To know God’s will, we need to first seek it. To digest what it is God is trying to say to us, we need to actively listen. And to walk with God and live out His plan for our lives, we need to be a responsive listener. In other words, seeking, listening, and doing all go hand in hand.
Psalm 81 is intended to be used in the celebration of one of Israel’s feasts, most likely the Feast of Tabernacles. It begins with a call to worship (vv.1-5) and then in vv.6-16, we find a first-person oracle from God, in which he pleads with Israel to listen to Him so that He can pour out the blessings of the covenant upon them (nation of Israel). We find these words in v.13 – “Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!”
While those words were spoken directly to the nation of Israel, I believe there is a similar plead to us today as well. Scripture is clear that God speaks to those who humble themselves in His presence, who intently listen, and who in response, obey what the Lord has said.
As we prepare to turn the calendar to 2023, I ask you and I ask me – Are you hearing God’s voice? Are you listening to God’s voice? Are you asking God, in order to accurately understand, to help you discern what you have “heard”? And then, how are you responding?
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