Are We Listening Well?

Hanging out with my grandchildren always gives me inspiration for my daily blog. When I watched “The Lego Movie” with my youngest grandson, I heard Emmett say, "I think I got it, but just in case, tell me the whole thing again. I wasn't listening."

I think I’m too often like Emmett. Listening well hasn’t always been my strong point. I had (and still do have at times) the tendency to be thinking of a response to someone speaking to me instead of “listening well” to them. There were times when I even cut someone off because I thought I needed to insert my experience into the conversation before they even finished sharing their story with me. Oh my goodness. I apologize to those of you who were the recipients of my not “listening well”.

I had a beloved pastor who always made me (and others) feel like I was the only one in the room when we talked. His eyes were on me. He didn’t let others distract him from listening to me. He listened well.

Have you ever had something really important to say to someone but you saw them texting, knowing full well, you didn’t have their undivided attention and weren’t “listening well” to you? Or maybe someone was trying to talk to you and at the same time you were texting, but you said: "I'm listening....go ahead!" In reality, we weren't listening WELL at all.

Imagine what God must feel like when He’s sending us messages all the time and we’re not listening well to His voice. We’re distracted or preoccupied or just maybe, we don’t even want to listen. You know how our children have selective hearing? You can call out their name over and over and they don’t respond, but if you say something like “Ice Cream”, they’ll come running. Just like our kids, we, too, have selective hearing. We listen to what we love. God is communicating with us all the time. He wants us as we want our kids, to "listen well".

So how do we listen well? We listen well by guarding our hearts. It's easy to be sidetracked, especially when we're so busy. We're running here and there, taking care of business and trying to figure out how to do this or that. God is always speaking to us, but our hearts are distracted as we are being controlled by busyness, stress, and anxiety. How many times did we miss a solution or answer to our prayers because we weren't listening well? We must guard our hearts so that when He speaks....we're tuned in to His frequency and can hear Him loud and clear.

Isn't it time we become respectful of others and we pay attention and “listen well” to them? And, above all, isn’t listening well for God’s voice a sure way to make right decisions? He holds the answers to everything we need to live a victorious life, so why would we allow anything to come between our ears AND His voice? Isn't it time for us to start LISTENING WELL?

Selective Hearing Comes in Handy

My iPhone must have selective hearing. I'll be audibly texting a message and the message comes out not anything like I said. My text message to my sister was supposed to start out "Hi sweet sis!" But, it sent "Hi, sweet the ass." She replied "This is too funny. Read your text 4th word." I have GOT to start reading my texts before I hit the SEND icon!!

My word(s) for today is SELECTIVE HEARING – one possesses this quality when they hear only what they would like to hear. Selective hearing is also known as hearing loss by attention. It affects many people and refers to the unconscious blocking out of sounds while engaged in another stimulating activity. For example, missing the sound of a telephone ringing because of focusing on a TV show.

There are times when I block out what someone is saying because I’m so busy with what I'M saying that I don’t hear what needs to be heard. I was at a conference last weekend and I was so busy in conversation that I failed to hear someone saying grace for our meal. My Selective Hearing was hearing my words, not someone else’s.

Selective hearing loss is not the result of one noise making another inaudible, but a choice by the brain to focus on one stimulus over another. For example: Mom: "Jimmy, clean up your room and them you can go to the movies." Jimmy: "Sweet! I can go to the movies!" Mom: "AFTER YOU CLEAN YOUR ROOM!" Jimmy: "What? You never said I had to clean my room" Mom: "I swear, you have selective hearing!"

Has your spouse, child or someone else asked you about something they had told you, and you don’t even remember them asking the question? At that moment they asked, apparently you had selective hearing and it didn’t SELECT that conversation. Indeed our children have selective hearing. We can call them and call them, and they don’t respond, but if we say “Ice Cream”, they’ll come running. We, also, have selective hearing. We listen to what we love. God is sending us messages all the time, but we’re not listening well. We’re distracted or preoccupied or just maybe, we don’t even want to listen.

Our Heavenly Father communicates with us all the time through His Word, His gentle nudges, signs and feelings, others speaking on His behalf and so many other ways. God is communicating with us all the time. He wants us, like we want our kids, to LISTEN WELL!”

Being a good listener is being present in the moments. Consciously avoiding distractions and honoring that one that is speaking to us. Proverbs 4:20 says "My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words." Such selective hearing is simply paying attention. God is speaking to us. Others are speaking to us. And when we pay attention and are tuned in to the Master's frequency, and when we set aside all distractions, we'll hear! ...When we do, we'll be listening WELL and SELECTING our hearing to hearing God's voice..