February 6, 2001
One of my Christmas gifts was a set of walkie talkies. Our children hooted with laughter as they questioned the wisdom of this purchase, but my husband thought they might come in handy.
Sure enough, he was right. Over the holidays, a virus or two attacked my system and sent me to bed for a few days. While Bob worked downstairs or in the garage, I was too wobbly to manage, so if I needed anything, he had me call him on the walkie talkie. Later, I told a neighbor about this handy gift. He laughed then quipped, “Don’t tell my wife about those things. I’m not sure I want to be that accessible!”
I discovered something while using “those things.” I’ve often noticed that my husband talks to himself while he works. When I hear him, I am never sure if he is talking to me or not. Also, if he is busy and I talk to him, he sometimes does not answer me, at least not immediately. It didn’t work like that with the walkie talkie. As soon as I beeped, he was right there.
Like many wives, I used to say, “You never listen to me” but the walkie talkies showed me that is not true. He simply needs to know that I am talking to him. In his mind, I could be talking to myself just as he does, and not expecting anyone to listen. Instead of a beep, saying his name gets his attention and helps him know that want him to listen.
On the same note, most of us rank “being heard” up at the top of our list. We get discouraged when we have something to say but no one wants to hear it. Most of the time, friends and family listen, but sometimes they are absent or wrapped up in their own problems. When that happens, we can take heart that God listens to what we have to say.
The Bible offers hundreds of verses and commands about talking to God and how He makes Himself accessible. As the psalmist says, His ears are open to our cries. He says we can ask Him for help when circumstances overwhelm us, just as the Israelites did when they were attacked by their enemies. God told them to, “Call unto me and I will answer you.”
Our problems might be perplexing but no matter how inadequate we feel, we can ask God for wisdom. He says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who give generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”
Notice, God never ridicules our requests or puts us down. If we are unable to do things by ourselves, we honor him by asking because He delights in helping those who call out to Him. The line to Him is always open, well, almost always.
The psalmist also says, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” Sin separates us from God. If we choose to rebel against Him, He shuts His ears to our demands. What can we do then?
There is one prayer that He will still listen to; it has been called “the sinner’s prayer.” This is a prayer of confession. The Bible says if we confess our sin to Him, He hears and is “faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all our unrighteousness.”
That kind of prayer or any other prayer needs no expensive equipment or technology. We can talk to God without email, telephones, Morse code, signaling devices, or walkie talkies. All we need is a humble heart that is willing to ask Him into our lives to help us, to bless us and to give us what we need in life’s situations.
Lord, so often I charge ahead and do not call to You unless I get into trouble. Help me remember to bring my day, with all its challenges, to You first. Thank You also that I don’t need a beeper because You hear me when I simply whisper Your name.
Showing posts with label hearing and listening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hearing and listening. Show all posts
Monday, February 12, 2018
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Read it, hear it, but also do it! .......... Parables 544
February 4, 1997
A Nashville, Tennessee congregation held a Bible-reading marathon as part of a week of activities leading up to the dedication of a new church building. During this marathon, over two hundred volunteers took part in reading thirty-minute segments, starting with Genesis and ending with the last verse in Revelation. It took them five days and five nights.
One participant said hearing Scripture read like that, especially all night, gave them a sense of awe and reverence. It seems the entire congregation plus many visitors were affected in a positive way. With such an enthusiastic response, perhaps this unusual marathon will prompt them to a continuing commitment to read Scripture aloud.
More than being a novel undertaking, reading the Bible audibly has attached benefits. For one thing, Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”
Earlier in that same passage, it says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” then asks the question, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” The point is, unless Scripture is heard, it is impossible to believe in its life-giving message.
A second possible benefit from reading Scripture aloud is that it enters our minds through another gate. Revelation 1:3 says, “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it...”
Notice the transition. Reading is good. Hearing is good. Both are important. However, the blessing has yet another prerequisite attached. What is heard must be taken to heart, moved from the ears to the inner person. Reading or hearing the Bible read is useless unless it makes a difference to the way we think and respond to God and to life.
God said much the same thing in the Old Testament. He told Joshua, Moses’ successor, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”
Joshua was just beginning his season of leadership. He was not a young man but filling the steps of Moses was probably intimidating. Also, the task before him included moving a huge group of people into a new land. They faced hostile residents who were not putting out a welcome mat. For Joshua, reading and thinking about what he read was important to this task, but notice that his success was ensured by doing what it says, not merely reading it.
James, brother of Jesus, also had something to say about reading and hearing. Like the direction given to Joshua, he also takes it one step farther. He says, “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”
Any individual or group that undertakes reading the entire Bible aloud will no doubt be blessed just as were those Christians in Nashville. Most of them will have greater insight into the mind of God. They will also better understand the human condition. However, for them and for all who read the Bible, the greater task and the greater blessing depends on what happens after the reading is finished.
A Nashville, Tennessee congregation held a Bible-reading marathon as part of a week of activities leading up to the dedication of a new church building. During this marathon, over two hundred volunteers took part in reading thirty-minute segments, starting with Genesis and ending with the last verse in Revelation. It took them five days and five nights.
One participant said hearing Scripture read like that, especially all night, gave them a sense of awe and reverence. It seems the entire congregation plus many visitors were affected in a positive way. With such an enthusiastic response, perhaps this unusual marathon will prompt them to a continuing commitment to read Scripture aloud.
More than being a novel undertaking, reading the Bible audibly has attached benefits. For one thing, Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”
Earlier in that same passage, it says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” then asks the question, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” The point is, unless Scripture is heard, it is impossible to believe in its life-giving message.
A second possible benefit from reading Scripture aloud is that it enters our minds through another gate. Revelation 1:3 says, “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it...”
Notice the transition. Reading is good. Hearing is good. Both are important. However, the blessing has yet another prerequisite attached. What is heard must be taken to heart, moved from the ears to the inner person. Reading or hearing the Bible read is useless unless it makes a difference to the way we think and respond to God and to life.
God said much the same thing in the Old Testament. He told Joshua, Moses’ successor, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”
Joshua was just beginning his season of leadership. He was not a young man but filling the steps of Moses was probably intimidating. Also, the task before him included moving a huge group of people into a new land. They faced hostile residents who were not putting out a welcome mat. For Joshua, reading and thinking about what he read was important to this task, but notice that his success was ensured by doing what it says, not merely reading it.
James, brother of Jesus, also had something to say about reading and hearing. Like the direction given to Joshua, he also takes it one step farther. He says, “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”
Any individual or group that undertakes reading the entire Bible aloud will no doubt be blessed just as were those Christians in Nashville. Most of them will have greater insight into the mind of God. They will also better understand the human condition. However, for them and for all who read the Bible, the greater task and the greater blessing depends on what happens after the reading is finished.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Seeing and believing .......... Parables 476
(no date for original)
My mom wears bifocals. Actually, that is not exactly true. She has bifocals. She wears them on a cord around her neck — most of the time. Whenever she tries to read, or watch television, or look out the window, she narrows her eyes and squints.
One day I asked her why she didn’t wear her glasses. Couldn’t she see better with them on? She put them on, looked at the TV, took them off and said, “Yes, I can, but most of the time I don’t want to look at anything.”
I understand that. Some days I don’t want to look at anything either. The news is frightful or repetitive. The day outside is gloomy. Television is nothing but reruns. I’ve read all my books. Why wear glasses?
As my mother grows older, she is becoming less and less interested in life’s confusion. Keeping her eyes off the world is one way to cope with a decreasing ability to make sense of it. Although I understand and even sympathize with her, her attitude reminds me of another type of refusing to see. This one is far more serious, even deadly.
Jesus talked about people “having eyes but seeing not.” He told His disciples that He spoke in parables or stories that would be not be understood by these people because, “though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”
Jesus added “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.”
Confused? The Bible explains. When someone hears spiritual truth but ignores or rejects it, their heart (mind) becomes hardened. As the process is repeated, a callous forms and soon that person can no longer hear or understand the truth Jesus proclaimed.
In contrast, those who follow Jesus have a responsibility to both hear and repeat the truth Jesus told. For instance, God gave the Apostle Paul a special mission. He related to King Agrippa what God had told him: “I am sending you to (the Gentiles) to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
Then Paul added, “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.”
As Paul obeyed what God showed him, he was given increasing revelations. The Lord even allowed an “infirmity” or weakness to prevent him from taking pride in that he had seen. Without this “thorn in the flesh,” Paul may have boasted about himself and his knowledge instead of doing the job God sent him to do.
The Pharisee’s illustrate the other end of the matter. They refused to believe anything Jesus said. Before long, even the simplest truths illustrated in parables confused them. Their deliberate choice at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry did them in. That choice was refusal to see the most basic reality: all have sinned (including themselves, the most religious Pharisees) and all need God’s forgiveness and the redemption He offers through faith in His Son.
“Use it or lose it” can be applied to muscle tone, eyesight, and skills — yet the most important application is to spiritual understanding. Whenever anyone refuses to see their own need of God, God politely makes Himself fuzzy, if not invisible, to their sight.
My mom wears bifocals. Actually, that is not exactly true. She has bifocals. She wears them on a cord around her neck — most of the time. Whenever she tries to read, or watch television, or look out the window, she narrows her eyes and squints.
One day I asked her why she didn’t wear her glasses. Couldn’t she see better with them on? She put them on, looked at the TV, took them off and said, “Yes, I can, but most of the time I don’t want to look at anything.”
I understand that. Some days I don’t want to look at anything either. The news is frightful or repetitive. The day outside is gloomy. Television is nothing but reruns. I’ve read all my books. Why wear glasses?
As my mother grows older, she is becoming less and less interested in life’s confusion. Keeping her eyes off the world is one way to cope with a decreasing ability to make sense of it. Although I understand and even sympathize with her, her attitude reminds me of another type of refusing to see. This one is far more serious, even deadly.
Jesus talked about people “having eyes but seeing not.” He told His disciples that He spoke in parables or stories that would be not be understood by these people because, “though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”
Jesus added “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.”
Confused? The Bible explains. When someone hears spiritual truth but ignores or rejects it, their heart (mind) becomes hardened. As the process is repeated, a callous forms and soon that person can no longer hear or understand the truth Jesus proclaimed.
In contrast, those who follow Jesus have a responsibility to both hear and repeat the truth Jesus told. For instance, God gave the Apostle Paul a special mission. He related to King Agrippa what God had told him: “I am sending you to (the Gentiles) to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
Then Paul added, “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.”
As Paul obeyed what God showed him, he was given increasing revelations. The Lord even allowed an “infirmity” or weakness to prevent him from taking pride in that he had seen. Without this “thorn in the flesh,” Paul may have boasted about himself and his knowledge instead of doing the job God sent him to do.
The Pharisee’s illustrate the other end of the matter. They refused to believe anything Jesus said. Before long, even the simplest truths illustrated in parables confused them. Their deliberate choice at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry did them in. That choice was refusal to see the most basic reality: all have sinned (including themselves, the most religious Pharisees) and all need God’s forgiveness and the redemption He offers through faith in His Son.
“Use it or lose it” can be applied to muscle tone, eyesight, and skills — yet the most important application is to spiritual understanding. Whenever anyone refuses to see their own need of God, God politely makes Himself fuzzy, if not invisible, to their sight.
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