You may find yourself reacting emotionally to things but I as a rule do not. I try to stay focused and in control as much as possible even when the emotions of others run high. It’s a guy thing I guess! Oh I do admit that this grand parenting thing has made me a bit mushy but I can usually reel it in and stay composed and in control of the afore referred to emotions…. Then I saw the video last week and cried like a baby. No not a baby video but a video of 29-year old Sarah Churman who was born deaf and struggled all her life to make sense of the auditory world around her. She has been on a hearing aid since age 2. “But hearing aids only help so much,” she says, “I have gotten by this long in life by reading lips.” All that changed, however, when she received a hearing implant approximately 8 weeks ago. "My whole life I've been complimented on how well I speak. I don't really have an answer for you other than I have always had a passion for reading, grammar, and English. My hearing loss was/is considered severe to profound. I've worked very hard to be able to interact and blend in.....only thing I can say is God is good'." Watching her experience is nothing short of powerful. It is touching, and gives us a sense of how it feels to experience a sense for the first time. And it reminds us: science is not just something that happens in a lab, but is something whose effects can be felt profoundly in the lives of people. Oh the things we take for granted.
“Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth”, the psalmist says. The writer of Proverbs says, “Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.” And though Jesus himself said many times, “If any man have ears to hear, let him hear” the Apostle Paul soberly reminds us, “And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” Someone once described mans greatest problem as the one mouth two-ear dilemma. We should listen twice as much as we speak but we get into trouble when we get it in reverse!
I notice three things as I meander through the above scriptures. First I notice the importance of listening. The story is told of Franklin Roosevelt, who often endured long receiving lines at the White House. He complained that no one really paid any attention to what was said. One day, during a reception, he decided to try an experiment. To each person who passed down the line and shook his hand, he murmured, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." The guests responded with phrases like, "Marvelous! Keep up the good work. We are proud of you. God bless you, sir." It was not till the end of the line, while greeting the ambassador from Bolivia, that his words were actually heard. Nonplussed, the ambassador leaned over and whispered, "I'm sure she had it coming." Secondly I notice the danger of not listening. Writer Charles Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few days. He got nervous and tense about it. "I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day," he recalled in his book Stress Fractures. "Before long, things around our home started reflecting the patter of my hurry-up style. It was becoming unbearable. "I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, 'Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin' and I'll tell you really fast.' "Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, 'Honey, you can tell me -- and you don't have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly." "I'll never forget her answer: 'Then listen slowly.'" Jim Reapsome, in Homemade writes, Teenage prostitutes, during interviews in a San Francisco study, were asked: "Is there anything you needed most and couldn't get?" Their response, invariably preceded by sadness and tears was unanimous: "What I needed most was someone to listen to me. Someone who cared enough to listen to me."
Lastly I notice the tragedy of listening and not obeying. James the brother of Jesus gives us a sobering scenario when he tells us, “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Not knowing what to do and making a mistake is one thing, but the tragic picture James paints for us here involves someone who has a lot on their mind and then knowing what to do does the wrong thing in spite of what they have heard and learned. So what have you heard recently that resonated with you? What have you listened to that challenged and motivated you to action? More importantly, what are you doing with that information? Again John Oxenham’s words fit the bill, “To every man there openeth A way, and ways, and a way. And some men climb the high way, And some men grope below, And in between on the misty flats The rest drift to and fro. And to every man there openeth A high way and a low; And every man decideth Which way his soul shall go.” Are you listening?
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