I Can’t Hear You

What?
Excuse me?
Can you repeat that?
I can’t hear you.

That seems to be the refrain for many of us.
Sometimes we want things repeated for legitimate reasons.
Sometimes we really cannot hear the person talking to us.
Sometimes we are putting off the inevitable words that will follow.

Many of us have to look at someone in order to hear them correctly.
It is not that we are lip reading.
It is simply that by looking at them, we are giving them our undivided attention.
Looking at them when they speak keeps our focus where it should be.

Sometimes our problem is that we listen too quickly.
Sometimes we stop listening before the other person stops talking.
Sometimes we tune out what the person is saying because we have heard it all before.
Sometimes we simply refuse to listen and we shut the person down entirely.

Listening is a problem for many of us.
We hear what we want to hear.
We miss much of what is being said.
We fail to hear the sounds that are all around us.

When my oldest daughter was young, she got ear infections quite often.
It seemed that we no sooner nipped one in the bud, another one was on its coattail.
The odd thing was that her ears never hurt her.
In fact her ear infections came without any pain at all.

I would call to her from the kitchen but she would not answer.
We were not in the house we live in now, which has an open floor plan.
the house we lived in then had a wall between the kitchen and the family room.
I would have to literally step into the doorway in order to be seen and heard.

After calling her a few times, I did just that.
I saw her playing on the floor with her favorite things.
When she saw me, she looked up.
Didn’t you hear Mommy calling you?

No, Mommy, she said, giving me her undivided attention.
It was simply a question of lunch preference that i was asking her.
It was not terribly important.
However, it wasn’t like her not to answer me.

A few days later, I walked into the family room.
The music was playing on the stereo.
My daughter knew how to turn the volume louder.
The music was quite loud and I asked her to turn it down.

When I went back into the room, she was sitting right next to the stereo speaker.
She was eating her snack.
She could not have been any closer to the source of the sound.
Something was not right.

I made an appointment at an ENT doctor, as was suggested.
Both of her ears were filled with fluid.
The fluid was pressing against her eardrum.
The doctor explained to me that it was as if she was listening to me while underwater.

My sweet little girl could not hear properly.
A hearing test was done where she had to raise one finger when she heard a sound.
I was sitting off in the corner of the room.
I only saw her finger go up in the air a handful of times during the test.

Of course, the ENT doctors discussed the need for tubes in her ears.
I did not want to do that.
I called our family doctor on the way home to ask him a question.
Something came to me that I thought would be worth investigating.

Doctor, I had bad allergies when I was a little girl and got ear infections all the time.
Could her ear infections be due to seasonal allergies as well?
We were in the middle of a glorious spring when everything was in bloom.
It very well may be the case, he said.

He prescribed and allergy liquid that is now sold over the counter.
Give her one teaspoon twice a day through the rest of the spring.
We will check her hearing in a few weeks.
You should see an improvement.

I was praying so hard that this would be the answer.
I did not want her to get tubes in her ears.
However, I wanted her to be able to hear correctly.
Within days, I saw a difference.

She heard me when I called to her from the other room.
She did not need to sit next to the stereo speakers.
In my mind, I knew that the allergy medicine was helping her.
I just knew that her hearing was back where it should be.

We went back for another hearing test.
I sat in the corner of the room.
She raised her little finger constantly.
She sat there with a huge smile on her face.

Therefore consider carefully how you listen. (Luke 8:18)

We often fail to listen to God.
We are too distracted and do not give Him our undivided attention.
We assume we have heard it all before.
We only hear what we want to hear.

God speaks to us.
God speaks to us when we read His Word.
God speaks to us through the preaching of His Word.
How good are we listening to Him?

Sometimes, we are just like the little child who puts their hands over their ears.
We try very hard not to hear something that we know we will dislike or that will convict us.
However, covering our ears will not stop God from speaking.
God speaks to our hearts.

He has also set eternity in the hearts of men. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

God has put the truth inside our hearts and it cannot be denied.
We can cover our ears all we like but the truth will not go away.
We can plug our ears with our fingers, but the truth is still there.
No amount of wishing it away will make it disappear.

Before the Holy Spirit opens our minds and hearts, we cannot hear Him.
It is like we are listening to God while underwater.
It is like we are seeing Him through a veil.
The veil must be lifted and the ears must be unplugged before we see and hear Him clearly.

That is what we pray for; for ourselves and for those we love.
We pray that our ears will be unplugged.
We pray that our eyes will be able to see without the veil.
We want to see Him and hear Him clearly.

Lord Jesus, through your Spirit, remove the veil so we can see You. Unplug our ears, so we can hear You. You have put the truth in our hearts. We want to see You. We want to hear you, clearly. Speak Lord, Your servant is listening.