Man, getting older is not a happy thing. My prescriptions for my contact lenses keeps getting stronger, my sense of taste and touch are getting less sensitive, and I am my hearing, it is not what it used to be. I definitely find myself saying, “What? What?” more often when someone is speaking to me. However, my ability to listen is the same as it has always been, poor.

I am sure if you have ever been married you know there is a difference between listening and hearing!

I think of a story in the Bible that demonstrated the importance of listening. Matthew 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, and Luke 9:28–36 (and 1 Peter mentions it,) all include the story of when Jesus took Peter, James, and John to the top of a mountain. After seeing Jesus with Moses and Elijah, Peter blurts out, “Lord, if you want, we can build three monuments for you. one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah!” Then a booming voice comes from the cloud and says, “”This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Mark 9:7-9)!

Did this really happen? I think it is obvious that something happened. Four books of the Bible mention it. If it was just a vision or hallucination, then only one person could have experienced it—here more than one person was there. Medically speaking, you cannot share a hallucination. However, did just Peter experience it and tell Mark and Matthew and Luke? I am not sure.

However, the point is that the voice said, “Listen to Him”. We need to know when it is time to build monuments and when it is time to listen, regardless of our ability to hear. Just as Jesus told Martha to stop waiting on people and to sit and listen in Luke 10:38-42, we run around doing and building and serving yet that needs to be balanced against time spent listening and hearing the Lord’s word in our hearts and in our lives. There is a time to be doing and a time for just being.

Our building, our serving, and our doing needs to be a product of our lives built upon the rock, not the other way around. There are many people who have lived their lives building, and serving, and doing for others who do not know the Lord and will not know Him when they die. If you have been given ears at birth, lets us use them to not just hear but to be listening! To listen to God we need to be in His word, we need to be knowing Him, we need an openness, and we need time.

Mark 7:14 After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand…

————————————————————————-W.