Perpetual Listener

Psalm 81: 8, 10-14

“Hear, O my people, and I will warn you – if you would but listen to me, O Israel!… I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!”

When you want to have a conversation with a friend or a loved one and decide to ring them, you would expect to know how they are and if anything, exciting has happened in their lives. You patiently listen to them: laughing if something funny occurred, grieve with them if something tragic occurred, encourage them if they are down and so on. When it is your turn to share, there is nothing wrong in expecting that they also would listen with the same eagerness about your welfare and sensational news that you might share. However, if the other person is not interested in your affairs, he/she might bid you good-bye. In several instances, you might find yourself becoming a perpetual listener as the person on the other end of the line is rambling on about their own affairs. You would feel disappointed that you weren’t heard. Now if such a thing seems to occur more frequently, you tend to conclude that the person on the other end just wants to be listened to! You might even avoid such people because you are growing tired of their stories and you are not given a chance to be heard.

There are instances that you are sharing something important but you are cut off because it is not as interesting as their topic, resulting in disappointment. You realize that you are not as important as you thought you were in that person’s life. Their affairs, their news, their troubles are of utmost importance and yours are least. In the third instance, there are people who pretend to listen to you but are not paying attention to what you are saying. You feel like you are talking to a wall. In all these instances, you are not heard! Suddenly, you feel so lonely and disappointed that you begin to wonder that if you matter at all to anyone. None to talk with and none interested in you can drive you to heartache.

I envisioned God in the same position – perpetual listener. He calls us and we answer. However, instead of listening to Him, we are rambling off about our problems, our sicknesses and dilemmas. God, in the kindness of His heart, listens to us. He then waits for us to stop talking so He could speak to us: give us the comfort that we are seeking, strengthen us when we are weak, encourage us when we are lowly and heal us when we are sick. He wishes to reveal His Word to us, hidden nuggets of wisdom from His truth. But we just don’t listen to what He has to say! We are too enamored about what is going on in our lives that we don’t have time to sit and listen intently to Him. As I came upon this scripture, I realized how many times I have rambled on and failed to listen to God. He is so eager to talk to us if only we would listen. In just five verses, the phrase, ‘listen to me’ has been quoted thrice. If only we listen, God has solutions to all our problems. When I as a human can get disappointed when I am not heard, how much more can God get disheartened when His people, whom He redeemed by paying a huge price, are not listening?

In Bethany, when Jesus visited Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Mary sat at His feet and listened. Martha complained to Jesus that her sister wasn’t helping her. However, Jesus replied Martha saying that Mary chose the most important thing and that will not be taken away from her.

Psalm 81 closes this way:

15. “Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.

16. But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

We must learn to listen to Jesus. We must practice listening to the sweet, still voice of Jesus when He speaks. We might not find solutions to our problems, and we certainly won’t have victory in our lives when we don’t listen to Jesus. God promised that our enemies’ imminent punishment would last forever and conversely, we would enjoy His best, if only we listen! Let us reform ourselves from ramblers to perpetual listeners.