Hear, Hear. Listen up! God has something to say

When I first met the woman I would soon marry, something about her jumped out at me almost immediately. She looked at me intently. Not just good eye contact, but she seemed to be studying me.

Of course, my male ego kicked in and I quickly decided that the only reasonable explanation was that she was smitten. 

We had met during an interview while I was on a speaking tour in Mississippi. She was the religion editor of the local newspaper. While we lived more than 350 miles apart at that point, we soon found reasons to stay in touch. 

One day, while visiting her, I said something while she had her back turned toward me, but I got no response. I wondered at first if I had said something inappropriate or offensive, but that wasn’t it. When I repeated what I had said, there was still no response. Nothing.

It then dawned on me that she wasn’t hearing me. Apparently, she had a hearing loss. So, when she turned around and faced me, I said, “I believe I have just discovered something about you. You don’t hear well.” 

I learned later that it was a condition she was born with. Her brother had a similar loss. 

Her response was an unmistakable look of sorrow. Even fear. This was a sensory loss that had had enormous, lifelong effects on her and one for which she had done her best to compensate.  

Like reading lips.

Then it dawned on me: That’s why she had been looking at me so intently. She was reading my lips to fill in for the parts she didn’t hear or understand. 

While my ego took a direct hit, I later said to her, “I can live with your loss, if you can live with mine.”

At twenty-six, my hairline was in a precipitous retreat. Just a glance at most of my male relatives would convince anyone that I was destined for male pattern baldness. 

Both of our losses evoked imagery unbecoming of our youth.  

God redeems all he allows

But that was 47 years ago, and somehow we have managed to live with each other’s losses across that span of time. Seriously, it was not always easy. 

While I can hide my “loss” under a baseball cap, hers is pretty much “out there” all the time. While my loss may impact another person’s immediate impression of me, hers has a continual impact on how people treat her. 

Unfortunately for both of us, our losses have grown more profound across time. But her resilience and courage have been remarkable. 

Me? I own a lot of baseball caps. 

A person’s hearing loss greatly impacts others. On occasion, some people have thought her aloof because she didn’t respond to a greeting or a question. Still others have spoken painfully slowly and loudly to her, giving the impression she was less than intelligent. 

Some (including me, sadly) have snapped at her when we’ve had to repeat things more than once. All of this is emotionally damaging and has had a significant impact on her self-image and confidence. 

And, while I could go on about our “losses,” we are both adherents of the precept that God redeems all he allows. Even these losses.

Hearing and listening are not the same

Through her loss, God has taught me some crucial lessons, chief among them that hearing and listening are not the same. 

My wife is a great listener, though her hearing is poor. She tends to focus on who is speaking and what is being said. I, on the other hand, tend to get distracted by others around me and their nearby conversations.  

Really, we listen with all our senses. Much of human communication is nonverbal anyway and perceived by senses other than hearing. Certainly, hearing loss undermines self-confidence, and I contend it’s the sensory loss that impacts relationships the most.

But there’s an exception. Her relationship with God. She hears her Lord perfectly because she’s listening intently. 

My wife is a prayer warrior. She has specific times, places, and methodology for her prayer life. How can I tell? Easy. She’s also a “doer.” God’s word says it best in James 1: 

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. (James 1:22–25 ESV)

The bridge between hearing God’s word and doing it is listening. I am often guilty of hearing only.  

The Lord has used her loss to make her a disciplined student of his Word and of prayer. She knows how to focus and listen, which impacts every dimension of her life every day. Her other senses redeem her hearing loss, as she depends on him in all her ways. 

And I am still learning the value of patience. 

Much of what I say to her often requires repeating. I’m saddened and embarrassed to confess that I am not always patient or kind when she fails to understand. According to Galatians 5, patience is a fruit of the Spirit.  

God consistently uses my wife’s hearing loss to challenge me to be a better disciple of his. Am I paying attention (listening) to what he is saying in his Word, or just merely hearing/reading it? Do I let the “noise” of my circumstances interfere with intently listening to him? Busyness and distraction easily become the noise that keeps me from listening.  

Listening yields obedience

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is credited with saying, “Busyness is not just FROM the Devil, it IS the Devil.” Amen and amen. 

Ultimately, listening to God—really listening—yields results: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). Listening connects us to God, the vine. We, the branches, then bear fruit as we stay connected and act in obedience according to his commands. 

But such listening is a choice.

For those of us who struggle to hear God, much less listen to him, I wonder if looking intently into his face would launch the deeper relationship we both desire. 

I remember someone looking intently at me, and my life has improved infinitely as a result. Yours can, too.

So hear, hear. Listen up. God has something to say.