My Daily Pause

For so many, listening is not their strongest habit.

The Bible really captures the essence of human nature.

A group of people who do everything together should know and understand each other perfectly. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit the opposite happens most of the time.

Jesus is recorded in the gospel of Mark three times foretelling his death and resurrection. (Mark 8:31-33, Mark 9:30-32, Mark 10:32-34) All three times, the apostles missed the point. I’m pretty sure the core problem is they were not listening.

So many put their relationships under the same stress that Jesus must have felt with the disciples. We get into a routine, we turn on autopilot, then we forget to pay attention:

• We live, eat, and sleep with our spouses and forget to take time to have real conversations. Sometimes for days at a time.
• We interact with family, coworkers, fellow church members, etc. and can barely remember having spent the time with them.
• Worse of all, we go to worship, go through the motions, but often cannot recount anything that was said during the service.

I really wanted to bullet point a three step plan to help improve this for everybody, but we aren’t really ready for that are we?

We are not listening.

Once we listen to our spouse, we will know what they need.

Once we listen to the others we interact with, we will know how to contribute to the collective.

Once we listen to God, through his word, we will know how to serve him properly.

Stop.

Listen.

That’s one habit we should all have!

We have probably all noticed that people tend to hear only what they expect to hear. (Often it is only what they want to hear, but that is a post for another day.) God spoke in John 12:29 and some of the crowd only heard thunder, others heard his words.

God expects us to make an effort to hear him

There is no mention of it in the passage, but I suspect that the people that didn’t believe in Jesus (John 12:37) were the same ones that didn’t understand the words when God spoke. Jesus had been demonstrating his power for months, and still, many were satisfied with their unbelief. Based on Johns quote from Isaiah, (John 12:40) God will let an unbeliever continue like that, further hardening their heart. Why not? Just like the Pharisees:

• They literalize spiritual messages
• They close the Bible and their eyes without study
• They scorn others that are diligent

Serving God is a lot of work. Not the least of which is keeping our heart open to his word.

Daily Bible reading for November 20

Psalm 111
2 Kings 19
Isaiah 9:1-7
John 12:20-50

Good people think before they answer,
but the wicked simply pour out evil. – Proverbs 15:28 NCV

Our instructions are to go out and teach the gospel (Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:19-20), so we should be always be prepared with answers (2 Timothy 4:2) and we should be able to accurately handle the Scriptures (2 Timothy 2:15).

Having done all of that, could a blunt, unloving and thoughtless answer be destructive – even when it is correct? It can happen, but it doesn’t excuse us from telling the whole truth. How then, do we avoid allowing our good words to have the same effect as another’s evil words? Paul offers this advice:

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person (Colossians 4:6).

Daily Bible reading for June 18

Proverbs 15-16
Deuteronomy 20
Amos 4
Matthew 2:13-23