What Kind of Listener Are You?

"Are your listening ears on?"

When our sons and grandsons were younger, that question was frequently asked around here.  And I often wondered then, and I continue to wonder, if God might not want to ask that same question of us!

When God is speaking to us, are we listening?  Are our listening ears on?

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' Then I said, 'Here am I.  Send me!'" (Isaiah 6:8 NASB, emphasis mine)

Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost for His Highest, had this to say about that verse:  Whether I hear God's call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends on my spiritual attitude.

And so I ask the question again.  Are your listening ears on?  Are my listening ears on?

Or are we so busy talking that we aren't listening?  Are we so busy telling God what we want or what we think we need that we can't hear what He is saying to us?

I've heard it said that your mouth and your ears can't work at the same time.  Whether or not that is actually, physically, true is not really the point.  The point is that it is impossible for us to focus on listening and on talking at the same time. 

If our focus is on telling God what we want or what we need or what our problems are, then it will be very difficult to focus on hearing what He has to say to us. 

It is also true that what He has to say to us may, in fact, be completely unrelated to what we wanted to talk about!

And so I ask the question yet again.  Are your listening ears on?


"If we will allow the Holy Spirit to bring us face to face with God, we too will hear what Isaiah heard - "the voice of the Lord."  (Oswald Chambers)