Can You Hear Me Now?
Husband and I yelled at each other for three
weeks. He accused me of not answering when he spoke and I
accused him of not answering when I did. There was an escalation
of hurt feelings on both sides.
Then we realized the problem. His hearing
aids had quit working.
The Grace of God is a lot like wearing
spiritual hearing aids. Back when we existed only in God’s
imagination He already knew we would be hearing impaired. Using
the Wesleyan model it looks like this...
Prevenient Grace is God drawing us into a
relationship with Him long before we heard Him speaking to us.
Knowing we couldn’t hear, God already had a plan.
Justifying Grace is the moment we realized He
had been talking to us all along, and we said “yes” to His
invitation for a mutual communicative relationship. Think of it
as the moment you received your custom made, extremely expensive
hearing aids. (Never forget that His Son died so that you could
hear.)
And finally, Sanctifying Grace is the
perfecting work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people who
accepted His miraculous gift of hearing. During our lifetime we
learn how to use the hearing aids we’ve been given: on/off
switch, volume control, insertion and removal, and cleaning them
over and over again. Whenever we are having difficulty hearing
Him, Sanctifying Grace identifies the problem and shows us what
needs to be fixed.
Unfortunately, there are always situations
and people that interfere with our ability to hear God.
Before Husband realized that his devices
weren’t working properly, there were several problematic
behaviors in our home. While watching the evening news, a
variety of stories caught his interest in such a way that he
started yelling at the newscasters, shouting his disagreement
with the reporting, the political slant, and the lack of godly
behaviors on everything from politics to lost pets.
His hearing-impaired responses became a
problem for him, and for everyone around him. Mostly me. What
was supposed to be entertaining and informative became something
much less holy.
This wasn’t entirely Husband’s fault.
Luke 4:13 says:
“So when the devil had
completed every temptation, he departed from him (Jesus)
until a more opportune time.”
There is an Adversary who is just hanging
around, waiting for an opportunity to create havoc. He has
warehouses full of earplugs and will stuff a pair in our ears
whenever he gets a chance. (He must love television news.)
Husband is an amazing life partner, father,
pastor, and chaplain, yet it took three weeks for him to realize
that he couldn’t hear. Distractions do that. Long before we
identify the problem, we usually have a nagging idea (or spouse)
suggesting, “Something isn’t quite right. You aren’t yourself
lately.”
We all have activities, habits, and
addictions that distract us. Leisure activities prevent us from
being fully engaged in the life of our family. We’ve read all
101 Best Crime Novels of the past century, but never read all 66
books of the Bible. We text when we should be driving and
Facebook post our meals instead of giving our attention to the
person at our table.
Plus, nothing does a better job of stuffing
plugs in our ears than drugs, alcohol, gambling, codependency,
and pornography. The Adversary loves addictions.
Once we’ve given our
life to Him, we need to be able to hear God whisper love into
hearts, Jesus whisper forgiveness and reconciliation into our
lives, and the Holy Spirit whisper, “Go here. It looks scary,
but I’ll go with you.”
How is your hearing
today? Need some repair work?