Have you ever been accused or possibly, accused someone else of not listening? I think we have probably all been there (on both sides) at some point in time. I thought the following article, borrowed from the Broken Bow bulletin has some pretty good points in it.
I DON’T WANT TO LISTEN
I love to hear stories about the humorous things children say, but this has to be one of my favorites.: In a Kindergarten class, there was a boy who wasn’t listening to the teacher. The teacher said to him, “Since you don’t want to listen, you sit at that table by yourself.” After a few minutes, a little girl in class raised her hand and said, “Teacher, I don’t want listen either. Can I sit with him?”
We may not always be willing to admit it out loud, but most of us gave experienced situations where we though to ourselves, “I don’t want to listen.” It may have been a teacher we didn’t want to listen to, or our parents, or just that co-worker who won’t seem to shut-up. “I just don’t want to listen.”
There’s a danger, though, that we may take the same approach with God. Jesus said of some of the Jews, “For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears…” (Matthew 13:15). Basically, their attitude toward Jesus was, “We don’t want to listen!”
But, if we don’t listen, we can’t learn. And, if we don’t learn, we can’t grow. May we all take to heart the advice of James in James 1:19 where he says, “Be swift to hear!”
May this be the prayer of us all! “Lord, please forgive me for those times when I have been so intent on doing things the way I wanted to do them that I closed my ears to what you had to say. Teach me, guide me and counsel me with your wisdom. I want to listen! In Jesus’ name, amen!
Some really good points in this short little article. How many times are we refusing to listen without even realizing we are doing so? We have our minds set, our attitudes set and just can’t hear anything else.
Brethren, let’s pray that we will all just sit down, open God’s word and listen to what God says we need to do to be right with Him and save our souls eternally.
Until next week, I love you all,
Dan