Selective Deafness

A mother takes her son to the doctor and tells the doctor that she thinks that there is something wrong with his hearing.  "Half the time, when I say something to him, he doesn't seem to hear me." The doctor looks at the young man and asks, "How old are you?" "Twelve and a half", he replies.  The doctor looks at the mother and says, "I imagine in six months he won't hear you at all."

We all have the ability to suffer from selective deafness.

So many  of us only hear what we want to hear.  That comes from not really listening to someone who is telling us something we don't like.  But it also comes from only listening to advice that confirms the position that we have already set.  

Say that you are going to buy something on line.  You go to the web site.  You look at the reviews, but only read the ones with five stars, even when there are several lower reviews right there.  Cable news is segmented so we only hear that from our political perspective.  And when we want advice, we go to a friend that will support our decision, not one that will be honest no matter what.  It's selective deafness.

And so it goes as we make decisions that affect our lives.  God is still speaking, but we do not listen.  Maybe we think that we won't like the answer and maybe we know the answer, we just don't want to hear it.

We live in an amplified world.  We are so used to everything coming at us at high volume that we have lost the art of listening.  When Lincoln spoke the Gettysburg Address, there were no microphones or loud speakers.  He spoke up and everyone paid attention.  

We need to give God that much attention.  We need to take time and quiet ourselves and pray and then listen.  That is if we want to hear what He is saying.