Tag: listen

Listen and See (Isaiah 42:14-21)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

For a long time, I, the Lord,
    have held my temper;
now I will cry out and groan
    like a woman giving birth.
I will destroy the mountains
    and what grows on them;
I will dry up rivers and ponds.

I will lead the blind on roads
    they have never known;
I will guide them on paths
    they have never traveled.
Their road is dark and rough,
    but I will give light
to keep them from stumbling.
    This is my solemn promise.

Everyone who worships idols
as though they were gods
    will be terribly ashamed.

You people are deaf and blind,
but the Lord commands you
    to listen and to see.
No one is as blind or deaf
as his messenger,
    his chosen servant,
who sees and hears so much,
    but pays no attention.

The Lord always does right,
and so he wanted his Law
    to be greatly praised. (Contemporary English Version)

The Christian season of Lent serves to remind us that we must cultivate awareness by opening our eyes and unstopping our ears. Spiritual blindness and deafness are the result of failing to pay attention, ignoring the moral vision of God, and not listening to God’s voice.

It’s not unusual for people to complain about God being silent and ignoring them. But do we ever consider how the Lord feels about us living our lives as functional atheists? There may be expressions of belief, yet God doesn’t factor into the daily life of many. And the Lord is not okay with this.

At least we have assurances throughout Holy Scripture that the Lord is attentive to us, even when silent or seemingly not there. However, when it comes to us, our silence and lack of being present to the Lord is outright spiritual blindness and deafness on our part.

Today’s Old Testament lesson almost seems as if Yahweh is like the person trying to get your attention in a crowded place – jumping up and down, waving his arms, yelling our name – doing whatever it takes for us to see and hear, listen and look up. Yet, alas, we don’t.

Maybe we need to remember what God’s divine eyes and ears have already seen and heard. The Lord heard the awful groanings of the Israelites in Egypt under their harsh slavery. And God took notice of them and saw what was happening. (Exodus 2:24-25)

Perhaps we must recall all the times the Lord heard the cries of the people and sent a deliverer (Judges 2:16-19); and looked from heaven, saw those in bondage, and freed them. (Psalm 102:18-20)

If we put our fingers in our ears, and cover our eyes for too long, our hearts will become hard, and we shall be unable to turn from unhealthy ways of living. We’ll become so obtuse and clueless that we cannot repent and be healed.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” He said, “Go and tell this people:

“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
    be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
Make the heart of this people calloused;
    make their ears dull
    and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
    hear with their ears,
    understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:8-10, NIV)

This might seem rather hard. And yet, none of us can truly know comfort and consolation apart from facing the hard truth in front of us and the hard heart inside us. Everyone wants happiness without pain. However, we cannot have a rainbow without a storm, and a resurrection without a cross.

We can have a different experience of God. It’s not too late. The message of Lent is that we can prepare ourselves for the Lord’s deliverance – and it is likely to come in the form of great sorrow and great joy of which we could not have anticipated.

The wisdom I proclaim is God’s secret wisdom, which is hidden from human beings, but which he had already chosen for our glory even before the world was made. None of the rulers of this world knew this wisdom. If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as the scripture says,

“What no one ever saw or heard,
    what no one ever thought could happen,
    is the very thing God prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:7-9, GNT)

We humans struggle with the hard things of life. Yet, what we don’t always see or hear is how those adversities are shaping and forming us as a people.

For how would we ever know the Lord as our:

  • Deliverer unless we were in bondage?
  • Comforter unless we were in trouble?
  • Helper unless we were weak?
  • Healer unless we were broken?
  • Provider unless we were poor?
  • Protector unless we were in danger?
  • Warrior unless we were under attack?
  • Rock unless we were being tossed about?

Every day is a fresh opportunity to experience the presence, power, provision, and protection of a God who sees and hears us. Believers are to honor and respect the Lord by listening to God’s voice and obeying God’s words.

So, let us use this season to offer prayers of repentance and faith:

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways,
and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Listen! (Psalm 81)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Shout for joy to God our defender;
    sing praise to the God of Jacob!
Start the music and beat the tambourines;
    play pleasant music on the harps and the lyres.
Blow the trumpet for the festival,
    when the moon is new and when the moon is full.
This is the law in Israel,
    an order from the God of Jacob.
He gave it to the people of Israel
    when he attacked the land of Egypt.

I hear an unknown voice saying,
“I took the burdens off your backs;
    I let you put down your loads of bricks.
When you were in trouble, you called to me, and I saved you.
    From my hiding place in the storm, I answered you.
    I put you to the test at the springs of Meribah.
Listen, my people, to my warning;
    Israel, how I wish you would listen to me!
You must never worship another god.
I am the Lord your God,
    who brought you out of Egypt.
Open your mouth, and I will feed you.

“But my people would not listen to me;
    Israel would not obey me.
So I let them go their stubborn ways
    and do whatever they wanted.
How I wish my people would listen to me;
    how I wish they would obey me!
I would quickly defeat their enemies
    and conquer all their foes.
Those who hate me would bow in fear before me;
    their punishment would last forever.
But I would feed you with the finest wheat
    and satisfy you with wild honey.” (Good News Translation)

I have a wife and three daughters. They talk – a lot! When my girls were small, it was hard to get their attention long enough for them to hear anything I was saying. So I oftentimes cupped my hands to their little faces so they couldn’t look around and get distracted. Then, I would speak, with them looking me straight in the eye.

It’s hard to listen. And listening seems to be a lost art and a skill we no longer care to develop. Maybe that’s because we’re obsessed with hearing ourselves talk. There’s so much chatter about so many things that we rarely even remember much of what we said; and a lot of those words get uttered before we even think. 

What’s more, when other people talk, most of it seems like a bunch of gibberish, due to our lack of focused attention. Perhaps we need an adult version of the hand-cupping we do with kids.

We really need the wisdom to know when to speak and when to be quiet. Whenever being quiet is required, it’s for the purpose of listening. And whenever words and noise are needed, it’s to praise God with our mouths and our musical instruments.

In this day and age, folks get so worked up to express their opinions, and say what they want to say, that the virtue of listening is not at all valued. However, God puts a premium on taking the stance of listening. 

The more you talk, the more likely you are to sin. If you are wise, you will keep quiet. (Proverbs 10:19, GNT)

Another reason listening is not well-practiced is that we esteem being busy and constant activity, to such a degree, that taking the time for silence long enough to listen is not of value to us. But if God’s people are going to hear the voice of the Lord, we must be still and silent, long enough to listen to what’s being said to us.

And yet another reason we eschew listening is that we are uncomfortable with silence, and seek to fill any quiet space with noise so as to not have to deal with what is really going on inside of us. Since God often speaks within the stillness and quietness of things, we’ll never hear, because our inner dialogue is drowning the words we need to listen to. (1 Kings 19:11-12)

I have a friend (I’ll call him Elmer) who spent eighteen hours in complete silence, without any talking whatsoever, in order to listen to God. You might think that Elmer is a monkish sort of introvert who likes that sort of thing. However, he’s actually an extrovert who lives in the inner city and comes from a large family. 

Elmer simply came to the point of understanding that he was so busy moving from one thing to another, and constantly talking, to the point that he was drowning-out the voice of the Lord. Here’s what Elmer said about his time of silence: 

“Those eighteen hours of silence were the loudest hours I have ever experienced. My mind was so noisy and so filled with stuff that it nearly drove me nuts. But after many hours passed, as the noise started to fade away, I could begin to hear the still small voice of God.” 

Elmer discovered that he was a person who kept pushing and projecting his agenda onto God. His lack of listening led to an inability to obey. After Elmer’s experience, he determined to start including times of solitude and silence into his everyday life, even if for only ten minutes, so he could listen to what God wants rather than tell God what to do.

The Lord came and stood there, and called as he had before, “Samuel! Samuel!” Samuel answered, “Speak; your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10, GNT)

Any fool can babble on about their gripes and opinions. In Holy Scripture, however, human speech is generally viewed as being overrated. Instead, silence and solitude, listening and learning, are the virtues practiced by Jesus; the kingdom of God cannot operate without them.

Therefore, we must take up the shield of faith with which to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one who wants to keep us trapped in either a cycle of constant chatter without listening, or continual silence without acting upon what we hear from God. 

We must be quiet for the purpose of listening to God. Then, when we hear the Lord speak, we must act in faith to say and do what we are called to.

God of silence and of all sound, help me to listen! Enable me to be patient and wait for your still small voice calling me. Give me attentive ears that can separate the noise from the sounds that are you. Today help me to hear you anew so that I may obey with wisdom and obedience. Amen.

A God Worth Exploring (Psalm 89:5-37)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

God! Let the cosmos praise your wonderful ways,
    the choir of holy angels sing anthems to your faithful ways!
Search high and low, scan skies and land,
    you’ll find nothing and no one quite like God.
The holy angels are in awe before him;
    he looms immense and august over everyone around him.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies, who is like you,
    powerful and faithful from every angle?
You put the arrogant ocean in its place
    and calm its waves when they turn unruly.
You gave that old hag Egypt the back of your hand,
    you brushed off your enemies with a flick of your wrist.
You own the cosmos—you made everything in it,
    everything from atom to archangel.
You positioned the North and South Poles;
    the mountains Tabor and Hermon sing duets to you.
With your well-muscled arm and your grip of steel—
    nobody messes with you!
The Right and Justice are the roots of your rule;
    Love and Truth are its fruits.
Blessed are the people who know the passwords of praise,
    who shout on parade in the bright presence of God.
Delighted, they dance all day long; they know
    who you are, what you do—they can’t keep it quiet!
Your vibrant beauty has gotten inside us—
    you’ve been so good to us! We’re walking on air!
All we are and have we owe to God,
    Holy God of Israel, our King!

A long time ago you spoke in a vision,
    you spoke to your faithful beloved:
“I’ve crowned a hero,
    I chose the best I could find;
I found David, my servant,
    poured holy oil on his head,
And I’ll keep my hand steadily on him,
    yes, I’ll stick with him through thick and thin.
No enemy will get the best of him,
    no scoundrel will do him in.
I’ll weed out all who oppose him,
    I’ll clean out all who hate him.
I’m with him for good and I’ll love him forever;
    I’ve set him on high—he’s riding high!
I’ve put Ocean in his one hand, River in the other;
    he’ll call out, ‘Oh, my Father—my God, my Rock of Salvation!’
Yes, I’m setting him apart as the First of the royal line,
    High King over all of earth’s kings.
I’ll preserve him eternally in my love,
    I’ll faithfully do all I so solemnly promised.
I’ll guarantee his family tree
    and underwrite his rule.
If his children refuse to do what I tell them,
    if they refuse to walk in the way I show them,
If they spit on the directions I give them
    and tear up the rules I post for them—
I’ll rub their faces in the dirt of their rebellion
    and make them face the music.
But I’ll never throw them out,
    never abandon or disown them.
Do you think I’d withdraw my holy promise?
    or take back words I’d already spoken?
I’ve given my word, my whole and holy word;
    do you think I would lie to David?
His family tree is here for good,
    his sovereignty as sure as the sun,
Dependable as the phases of the moon,
    inescapable as weather.” (The Message)

Christ the Redeemer photo by John Dalkin

The Lord’s in it for the long haul.

Yahweh’s faithfulness never wavers nor diminishes over time; it’s always there, always operative.

The angels in heaven know it. All creation knows it.

Sometimes, perhaps oftentimes, and most certainly ironically, much of humanity doesn’t know it. They’re late to the celebration party. Like clueless ants on the sidewalk of life, they fail to look up and observe the big picture of the universe – as if the busywork they’re doing is all there is to living.

Silly us.

When push comes to shove, the only thing we puny people really want is someone who will love us for who we are. We just need someone who will have our back, all the time, and always be there for us, no matter what.

So (in the face of a faithful, loving, and caring holy Being) why do we act as if there’s no one home in heaven? Why does such a large chunk of humanity simply dismiss God as some antiquated idea from pre-modern people who didn’t understand the things we now know?

Aside from those questions being not much more than hubris, it assumes ancient people were downright stupid – except for maybe Plato or Cicero, bless their hearts. Yet even those guys knew better than to ground their ethics – not to mention their lives – in something and someone higher and bigger than themselves.

I tend to think that it all comes down to a matter of listening – of which we people have proven to be, at best, rather dull about; and, at worst, completely tone deaf to the continual voice of the universe.

Because if we would but just stop our ant-like busy-bodying for but a minute and listen, we would discover a constant cacophony of voices lifting praises to a Creator for whom they owe their very existence to.

The bald fact of the matter is that there are presently, right now this very moment, and every minute 24/7, a vast choir of angels offering praise to their Sovereign.

We would hear the ocean churning it’s affirmation that there is One greater than it’s own mighty waves; and the mountains and volcanoes rumbling their collective recognition that someone greater than their great chains of rock makes their very presence possible.

We could begin to hear the voices of history proclaim that there is an invisible force much stronger than the visible forces we believe to be so powerful.

Most important, we can hear the voice of the Lord – not with our actual physical ears – but with the spiritual ears which so many forget they even possess.

If we would get our heads out of the metaphorical sands of skepticism, we might begin to acknowledge and appreciate the voices of others for whom we have suppressed for too long: Native Americans; Australian Aboriginals; indigenous African spirituality; and any society with an historic and robust theology different from our own.

Both the cosmos way out there, as well as the children next door, discern and know what others do not: There is a God in heaven; and that God is deserving of praise – not the weird God you might think you know who is capricious and fickle – but the Lord who is more dependable than the most faithful friend you’ve ever had.

That’s a God worth exploring.

Listen to the Prophets (Jeremiah 25:1-14)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
St. Nicholas Church fresco of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel by Leopold Bruckner, Prešov, Slovakia

This is the Message given to Jeremiah for all the people of Judah. It came in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah. It was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.

Jeremiah the prophet delivered the Message to all the people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem:

From the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah right up to the present day—twenty-three years it’s been!—God’s Word has come to me, and from early each morning to late every night I’ve passed it on to you. And you haven’t listened to a word of it!

Not only that but God also sent a steady stream of prophets to you who were just as persistent as me, and you never listened. They told you, “Turn back—right now, each one of you!—from your evil way of life and bad behavior and live in the land God gave you and your ancestors, the land he intended to give you forever. Don’t follow the god-fads of the day, taking up and worshiping these no-gods. Don’t make me angry with your god-businesses, making and selling gods—a dangerous business!

“You refused to listen to any of this, and now I am really angry. These god-making businesses of yours are your doom.”

The verdict of God-of-the-Angel-Armies on all this: “Because you have refused to listen to what I’ve said, I’m stepping in. I’m sending for the armies out of the north headed by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant in this, and I’m setting them on this land and people and even the surrounding countries. I’m devoting the whole works to total destruction—a horror to top all the horrors in history. And I’ll banish every sound of joy—singing, laughter, marriage festivities, genial workmen, candlelit suppers. The whole landscape will be one vast wasteland. These countries will be in subjection to the king of Babylon for seventy years.

“Once the seventy years is up, I’ll punish the king of Babylon and the whole nation of Babylon for their sin. Then they’ll be the wasteland. Everything that I said I’d do to that country, I’ll do—everything that’s written in this book, everything Jeremiah preached against all the godless nations. Many nations and great kings will make slaves of the Babylonians, paying them back for everything they’ve done to others. They won’t get by with anything.” God’s Decree. (The Message)

An ancient rabbi once said that we have two ears and one mouth so that we will listen twice as much as we talk. 

Listening with curious and focused attention is a forgotten skill and a lost art in Western society. 

Slick marketing, political punditry, and over-the-top speech all scream into the culture because there is such a dearth of listening. It seems many people are more concerned to make their opinions known than do any kind of deep listening to another.

No one seems to want to put in the work of discovering another’s true thoughts, feelings, and needs. Instead, we’d rather rant, play armchair quarterback, and make uninformed comments on things we don’t understand.

It’s really downright sad and tragic that we fail to listen to each other. And it is especially terrible when we do not listen to God. 

The Old Testament prophets exist because of a failure to listen. At the time of Jeremiah, not only did the people not hear; they refused to listen. They put their fingers in their ears and babbled “la-la-la-la-la.” So, it was only fitting that the Lord sent the people to Babylon.

This was not merely the inability to listen because they were overworked, too tired, or “hangry.” The problem was much deeper than that. For years, God kept up a steady stream of words, telling the people exactly what was expected. But they didn’t listen, on purpose. Like a parent speaking to an angsty teenager, it all went in one ear and out the other with nothing getting done.

God passionately desired the people to amend their evil ways. But they didn’t want to hear it. 

So, after years, even centuries of unfaithfulness, unrighteousness, and injustice, God’s patience came to its limit. Tragedy happened. The Babylonian Exile became a terrible and harsh reality.

If there is no deep listening to God and God’s Word to us, there will be deep repercussions. 

Listen, my friends: None of us can do the will of God if we don’t know what God wants. It takes listening. And listening takes focused attention. And focused attention requires a posture of humility. And humility requires being emptied of all pride and hubris. 

Apart from genuine listening with the intent to understand and alter actions accordingly, there will be no peace, no love, no grace. The space of inattention quickly fills with lazy ears, emotional heaviness, spiritual sickness, xenophobic suspicion, anxious fear, dark thoughts, angry rants, and a retreat into selfish caring for oneself. 

The beginning of wisdom and human flourishing starts with listening well. Paying attention through deep listening brings humility of heart, purification of pride, and love of God and neighbor.

Truly hearing the words of God leads to self-awareness, cries for God’s mercy, a knowledge of humanity, the study of Holy Scripture, and a familiarity with the Church’s long tradition of sound teaching.

Therefore, silence is vital for everyone. Prayer needs to be more about sitting still in solitude and silence in order to listen and much less about talking at God.

But if we insist on making more noise than a couple of skeletons dancing on a tin roof, we will eventually be those skeletons – without any substance and only good for the grave.

So, read the prophets. Listen to them. Pay attention to their message. And heed their warnings and exhortations. Your ears will be glad you did.

Holy Father and God of all, your speech goes out into all the earth. Your Word is there for us to hear if we will only but listen. 

Lord Jesus, let your words and your teachings penetrate so deeply into my soul that your loving ways come out of me in all I say and do.

Blessed Holy Spirit, help me to so listen to your inner voice that encouragement and forgiveness pours forth from the wellspring of a heart which is baptized in God’s Word. Amen.