Everyday Encounter with God

Pastor Sylvia's Encounters with God in the Midst of Everyday Life

 

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?