The Trouble with Listening
If you’ve ever spent the day with children of any age, my guess is you’ve had to remind them to listen. Recently, I was with my 2 year-old great niece who is incredibly independent, and the phrase “I do it!” is one of her favorites. She has to be reminded to listen. As a school teacher, I have conversations with high schoolers all day, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that every single school day of the past 31 years I’ve had someone ask me a question I just answered…but he or she wasn’t listening.
There are lots of reasons we don’t listen. It’s not always a stubborn refusal to hear something. Listening is a skill that at its core is selfless. When we stop to listen to someone…really listen, we put ourselves aside in order not only to hear but to understand what it is they are saying.
But because we are naturally selfish, we aren’t natural listeners. We have to learn to listen, which begins by paying attention to what the other person is saying.
I can’t help but think about the parable of the sower when I think about how we listen. In the parable, Jesus talks about four different kinds of hearers of the word. Surely, in his audience that day, all four kinds of listeners were present. Hearing…certainly. Listening…maybe.
The first listeners are those who refuse to hear anything they don’t like. In fact, when they are given the good seed which is the word of God, they aren’t interested. Some react violently against the truth and seek to undermine it, but those seem to be the minority…then and now. There are very few people I come into contact with who are violently opposed to God’s word. Most just dismiss it as irrelevant. There’s no regard for truth whatsoever. There are an awful lot of people who are just too lazy to think about the truth for very long. There’s certainly no attempt to make an application to themselves.
How many times have you tried to talk to someone about God only to have them say, “Well, I just don’t know whether I believe that or not”? That’s the end of the conversation, by the way. That’s code for “I don’t want to hear about God or truth or anything complicated that may demand a change in the way I like living my life.” They aren’t listening to hear truth. In fact, they aren’t listening at all because they might hear truth!
The trouble with listening to God’s truth is that it demands a response. When we hear it, and we know it for truth, there’s a decision to be made. The word of God is like a two-edged sword dividing bone and marrow (Heb 4:12). There’s nowhere to hide from it. And so, we simply refuse to listen. In our arrogance, we harden our hearts and turn away. The Pharisees have this problem. Those who were in the audience that day, surely didn’t want this truth because they thought they knew everything already. They are listening with their own agendas, waiting to find fault. They aren’t listening for truth.
We have to make sure that we don’t become people who think we have everything all figured out and there’s nothing left for us to learn. We have to be careful about thinking we have everything right. We most likely don’t, and so we have to keep studying and growing and using the good seed as our standard of truth. We have to keep listening.
The second and third kinds of hearers of the word that Jesus discusses both have hearing problems. The hearer who initially receives the word with joy is a believer who responds to the truth with enthusiasm and excitement. This is a hearer whose heart is pricked; it’s a genuine response. The problem here is that over time, that initial emotional response hasn’t been replaced with anything stronger. Faith will be tested, and this listener never does the hard work of putting down deep roots. There are many in the world who are seeking a continual state of euphoria to feed them. And while there is certainly an emotional element to our faith, our life in Christ isn’t an emotional high wherein we soar above life’s troubles. That’s the trouble here. This listener shrivels up in the heat of the day because the word hasn’t continued to grow deeper than the surface. It’s only an emotional response, and then the listening stops.
The Hebrews writer addresses this problem when he tells his audience that they’ve grown “dull of hearing.” He has been discussing the high priesthood of Christ, and he says that he has more to tell them, but he can’t because, while they should be ready and able to understand, they aren’t able to hear complicated things (Heb. 5:11).
The problem with listening is that we will hear things that will challenge us…things that are complicated…things that may be difficult to teach and hold the line on in our lives. The writer goes on to tell the Jewish Christians that while they should be ready to teach, they still need milk. They stopped listening and are no longer able to distinguish between what is true and false (14).
The third listener's problem is distraction. This is the thorny ground. Here, there does seem to be some root system. And yet, again, this person who listened initially, never removed things that make listening difficult. Our anxiety, our grudges, our infatuation with this world…it’s all still in the field. There isn’t room for the word to take root.
We have to prepare ourselves to listen. Again, it isn’t something we are naturally good at. These listeners can’t let go of the things of the world, and eventually, the plant that had some roots is choked out. Jesus talked about how dangerous it is to be preoccupied by the things of the world. He tells us that we can’t serve two masters (Matt 6:24).
The problem with listening is that you can’t listen to two conversations…not really. When I’m out to eat with a large group of people, my least favorite place to sit is in the middle of the table. I hate being where I can hear multiple conversations; it’s torture to me! I leave feeling like I haven’t talked to anyone at all because I have such a hard time focusing on any one conversation. I can’t listen with all of those voices around me.
Spiritually, we are in the same predicament. You can’t profess to listen to God and also somehow meld His voice in while you listen to the world. If I hear my Shepherd’s voice, then I don’t hear all the other voices that demand my attention (John 10:27-28).
To whom am I listening? I listen to someone. I hear something. The thoughts in my head and the content of my conversation is an excellent indication of where my ears are tuned, but I have to slow down enough to assess what it is that is in my head and what is coming out of my mouth - because that is also what’s in my heart (Matt 12:34-40).
Lastly, Jesus talks about the hearer who truly listens. Listens without an agenda, listens with a heart that wants truth, listens with a mind that continually grapples to understand. This is not a person listening only for the opportunity to interject an opinion, a piece of advice, or a personal experience. This is a person who wants truth, who knows that God’s commandments have value, and who desires to be in His presence. The seed planted in this soil will take root and grow strong and be productive. This is the one that James speaks of in James 1:19-22.
James assures us that if we are “swift to hear, slow to speak, [and] slow to anger” and if we can remove ourselves from the world, not be distracted like the listener of the thorny ground, not be impetuous and driven by emotions like the hearer of the rocky ground, then like the good soil, we can receive in meekness the word. It will be implanted in us, and it alone is able to lead us to salvation.
Finally, James reveals the ultimate trouble with listening. If we hear the truth and listen to it, we must commit ourselves to doing what we’ve heard: “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”
We can’t kid ourselves into thinking that we have heard God’s word if we haven’t put His laws to work in our lives. In His sermon on the mount, Jesus closes with a warning that not everyone who hears and calls on the Lord will receive the kingdom. But rather that whoever hears His sayings and does them is like a wise man who built his house on a rock (Matt 7:21-24).
“He who has ears, let him hear!”