Listening With Your Heart

Do you hear me?

Did you hear what I said?

Are you listening to me?

Have you ever had a conversation with someone, and somewhere in the middle of a sentence you noticed this glazed look on their face, and you stopped and said, “Do you hear me?”  To which they replied, “Yes, I hear you.”  And to be perfectly fair, they are probably telling you the truth, yet they may, or may not be listening to you.

Believe it or not, there is a big difference in hearing and listening.

Hearing is the natural ability, or an inborn trait that allows us to recognize sound through our ears by sensing vibrations.  Hearing is a passive occurrence that requires no effort.  Hearing occurs with, or without your consent.  Hearing requires no focus.

Listening is the learned skill, in which we can receive sounds through our ears, and transform them into meaningful messages.  Listening requires a conscious choice and demands your attention and concentration, so that your brain processes meaning from words and sentences.  Listening leads to learning.  

Recently in my quiet time, for some reason, I was looking at the word “heart.”  While doing so, another word captured my attention, the word between the “h” and the “t”.  The word found in the middle of heart — ear.  The longer I looked at it, and the more I thought about it, the more I began to understand that maybe it wasn’t a coincidence.  Perhaps, this is really the way we listen.  Perhaps, we listen with the ear in the center of our heart.

Hearing is an ability, while listening is a skill.  Hearing and listening both use your ears.  Hearing uses the ears on your head, but I tend to believe listening uses the ear in the center of your heart.

I heard a quote many years ago, that I was reminded of when I started writing this entry.  The quote is somewhat humorous, yet does have a certain amount of truth to it — “I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

You may have heard someone use the term, “selective hearing,” when referring to someone who only hears, or listens to, what they want to.  I am convinced that there are actually more people today who are “hard of listening,” rather than “hard of hearing.”  Listening impaired, rather than hearing impaired.

Every day we are surrounded by sounds that we hear, and many times we hear more than we want.  We can’t always choose what we hear, but we do have a choice as to what we listen to.  We can choose to listen to the opinions and ideas of the world, or we can choose to listen to the truths of God’s Word.

If it’s true that we listen with our heart, then it is critical that we continually guard our heart and what we are listening to.  Choose wisely!

Jesus said in John 10:27, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”  To hear His voice will require listening on our part.  It must be a deliberate, conscious effort to listen to what God is saying.

Does God still speak today?  I happen to be one of the crazy ones, who believe He still speaks.  It may not be an audible voice, but there is a sound, a sound that resonates inside the heart, when you listen.

Do you hear God?  Do you listen for God?  To hear what He’s saying to you, may require you to close the ears on your head, and open the ear in the center of your heart.  But if you choose to take the challenge, I can assure you that you will be surprised at what you will learn.

Do you hear me?

Listen!

Still Believing!