New Ears

New Ears

Jesus replied, “I have already told you, and you don’t believe me. The proof is the work I do in my Father’s name. But you don’t believe me because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

John 10:25-27

AS YOU MAY REMEMBER, when my wife, Jennifer, and I first started dating, we lived in different states. Living at a distance, we didn’t communicate at all. Sure, we could have talked on the phone or written letters, but we decided not to. Instead we basically ignored each other. And our relationship grew and grew. It seemed like every day we fell deeper in love, and our commitment to each other became stronger.

Did you read that last paragraph twice? It doesn’t make any sense, does it? It doesn’t make sense because it’s not true. Of course we talked. And if we hadn’t, our relationship certainly would not have grown. If we never communicated, our love wouldn’t have increased; it would have become stagnant, at best.

Maybe you want to love God more and feel more loved by him, but you’re rarely communicating with him. And if so, of course the relationship is not growing.

Or maybe you pray, you do talk to God, but it’s a one-way conversation. Can you imagine if during our long-distance dating, I wrote letter after letter to Jennifer, but she never responded? If I never heard from her, I’d start to wonder, and I’d get discouraged. Some of us are talking to God but never listening. It could be that the idea of God talking to you sounds odd. But when you become a new you, you get new ears that are designed to hear God. You just need to believe, be still, and be aware.

Believe

Maybe you’re of the belief that God used to talk to people but doesn’t do that anymore. That’s just something that happened back in Bible times. Sure, God spoke to Abraham and Moses; that’s the Bible. That kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore, and especially not to someone like me.

But that’s not true. God is the God who speaks. Not just back then, but today. In fact, if God can’t speak, he’s not much of a god at all. That’s the idea we get in the Bible: that any god who can’t speak is no god worth speaking of. “What good is an idol carved by man, or a cast image that deceives you? How foolish to trust in your own creation—a god that can’t even talk!”^a

God can speak, and the Bible tells us we should expect to hear from him. But if we’re going to, we need to believe that he is able to and wants to speak to us. If we don’t believe, we won’t have ears to hear.

Be Still

God may occasionally get our attention in an unmistakable way that just cannot be ignored. But far more often, God’s voice is not so obvious.

There’s a story in the Bible where God set up a meeting with a guy named Elijah. Elijah showed up at the mountain where they were supposed to meet and was waiting for God to arrive, when suddenly a hurricane-like wind whipped through. Elijah thought God was in the wind. But the wind died down, and God was not in the wind. Then out of nowhere, an earthquake shook the entire mountain. Elijah thought, Here’s God. He’s come in an earthquake! But God was not in the earthquake. Soon an inferno exploded, and fire raged through the area. Elijah thought, God is arriving in a ball of fire. But the fire subsided, and God was not in the fire. Then a gentle voice whispered, “Elijah.” And that gentle voice asked Elijah a question and went on to gently confront him about a problem that was so serious it had led Elijah to consider suicide.

God came in a gentle whisper. And when Elijah went down off the mountain and people asked him, “What was it like to meet God?” I think he probably replied, in a kind of stunned way, “He whispered my name. I could barely hear him. I had to be still just to hear it. He whispered my name.”

God says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”^b I’ve heard stillness described as silence on the outside and surrender on the inside. We need to get silent so we can hear God’s whisper, and we need to surrender our wills to his leadership so we’re willing to do whatever he tells us. What might that look like for you? How could you create some regular time to get away from all the distractions? If you, in that silence, invited God to speak to you, how do you think he’d respond to that?

Be Aware

We need to believe that God can and wants to talk to us. We need to be still, creating regular times when we listen for God’s voice. And we also need to be aware, because God may choose to speak to us when it’s not on our schedule.

New moms develop supersonic hearing with their babies. They have this incredible awareness and will hear any noise their babies make, even if the moms are sleeping, or vacuuming, or sleep-vacuuming.^c

If we want to hear from God, we need to be aware, all the time. We need to have ears to hear and be sensitive to anything he might be saying to us.

That’s difficult. I find I can be pretty receptive to God when I’m at church or during the time I’ve set aside to spend with him in the morning. But the rest of the time, I’ve got my agenda, and it’s easy to miss out on what God wants for me. And if I miss out on that, I’m missing out on a big part of what makes being a Christian a supernatural, dynamic, exciting adventure.

I miss out on the precious moments God has for me. Like when I’m playing with one of my children, loving them, and out of nowhere sense God saying, “This is the way I feel about you.” Or when I’m talking to a friend who’s sharing some struggles and God prompts me, “This would be a great time to invite them to church.” Or when I’m worrying about a relationship in my life or my finances, and suddenly I feel God’s presence with me, and it’s like he’s saying, “You can trust me; I’ll take care of you.”

When that kind of thing happens, it’s amazing. And I think I’ve missed out on many of those amazing moments because I had my agenda and I didn’t have ears to hear God. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

God wants to talk to you. And he wants to lead and guide and encourage and counsel you in a relationship that becomes a divine romance, and into a life that becomes a great adventure.

That’s what we all want.

Now What?

• Read Psalm 25:1-6.
• Try a prayer practice called “Hands Down, Hands Up.” Sit with your hands palms down and mentally “put down” everything that is weighing on you at this moment. Lay your burdens and distractions down. Breathe them out, picturing them leaving you as you turn them over to God. Then turn your palms up, and breathe in. Take in God’s love for you. Listen for his whisper. Take a few minutes to do this, perhaps alternating between having your palms up and your palms down.
• Spend your prayer time being still, becoming aware of God’s presence, and doing the “Hands Down, Hands Up” prayer practice.