Selective Hearing – Oops or Opportunity?
Are we REALLY listening? A bakery received the call for a cake to be made for a “Going Away” party. Apparently, someone taking directions for this cake design failed to listen AND discern the instructions. We can imagine that the conversation went like this:
“Hello, I would like to order a cake for a going away party.”
“What do you want on the cake?”
“Put ‘Best Wishes Suzanne’ and underneath that ‘We will miss you.’
”Instead, this is the cake-gone-wrong pictured here! That’s funny! This photo amused me so much that it led to this blog today. God has a great sense of humor to inspire this one…..this way! The scripture that comes to mind is: “He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen…” (John 9:27)
And doesn’t that sound like how we feel when what we speak to our children or spouse and they really aren’t listening? You’ve also heard about the older couple and one turns off their hearing aid because they deliberately and selectively don’t want to listen
.I’ll admit that there are times when I block out what someone is saying because I’m so busy with what I’m saying that I don’t hear what needs to be heard. Later, I’ll admit that I didn’t “catch” what they were saying. I read this: “Selective hearing loss is not the result of one noise making another inaudible, but a choice by the brain to focus on one stimulus over another. For example:
SELECTIVE HEARING is a quality someone possesses when they hear only what they would like to hear. Selective hearing is also known as hearing loss by attention. It affects many people and refers to the unconscious blocking out of sounds while engaged in another stimulating activity. For example, missing the sound of a telephone ringing because of focusing on a TV show.
We, also, have selective hearing. We listen to what we love. God is sending us messages all the time, but we’re not listening well. We are distracted or preoccupied or just maybe, we don’t even want to listen.
Our Heavenly Father communicates with us all the time through His Word, His gentle nudges, signs and feelings, others speaking on His behalf and so many other ways. God is communicating with us all the time. He wants us, like we want our kids, to LISTEN WELL!”
Being a good listener is being present in the moments. Consciously avoiding distractions and honoring that one that is speaking to us. Proverbs 4:20 says “My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words.” Such selective hearing is simply paying attention.
God is speaking to us. Others are speaking to us. And when we pay attention and are tuned in to the Master’s frequency, and when we set aside all distractions, we’ll hear! When we do, we’ll be listening WELL and SELECTING our hearing to hearing God’s voice..