Putting on my Listening Ears

To me, there is a distinct difference between listening and hearing. My dictionary.com app, however, bascially defines listening and hearing with the same definition. But nobody asked dictionary.com, except me, when I did, but let's not get lost in the details.

While I don't have solid definitions to support my claim, in my opinion, listening trumps hearing every time. If given the choice of someone hearing me and someone listening to me, it would be an easy decision. Listening wins (Oh, that's deep). The catch being that I don't think one can listen without hearing, so in reality by chosing listening, I am chosing both. Two for the price of one, if you will.

Let me give an example relevant to my life. One of my favorite things in life is music. I could go on a crazy tangent here about why I love music and as much as it's a temptation to do so, I will refrain (pun totally intended). Music is in the background of a lot of situations. It's the soundtrack of movies, the undertone of restaurants, the filler between innings at baseball games, and so much more. Currently, it's blasting through my house as I write. However, in several of those scenarios, while I hear the music, I don't listen to it.

Hearing is more passive, according to me, but listening requires attentiveness. I can hear music playing in the background while I eat my dinner at Bill Gray's (of all the places to choose...yes, I will still choose there), but it's just the background noise keeping beat to my cheeseburger eating. However, if I am listening in that same moment, I realize it's my favorite song and now am playing air guitar and singing at the top of my lungs "Baby, Baby, Baby, ohh...". Okay, so none of that would happen, nor is Baby my favorite song, but I think the point has been illustrated.

I started thinking about listening and hearing and the differences between the two a couple weeks ago when I was reading the end of Psalm 66. "But He surely did listen, He came on the double when He heard my prayer. Blessed be God, He didn't turn a deaf ear, He stayed with me, loyal in His love" (MSG translation). You're welcome to jump in excitement at this, I'm refraining another whole tangent about how cool this is.

I think this verse illustrates the process of listening.
1. The Psalmist was praying. ( There is something being said or in other words, there is something to be heard here)
2. The prayer was heard. ( Now there's a choice, is what I hear going to become background noise or I am going to allow it into the forefront?)
3. God didn't turn a deaf ear, He surely did listen. (Enough said)
4. He stayed with me, loyal in His love. (I could cry at the magnitude of this....okay, gulity of such).

So I know this is an example of how God listens (How cool is it that our God listens?), but I think it's also an example of how we are to listen. Not just to the conversations that are around us, but to the conditions. I know I'm gulity of indifference. I hear staggering statistics or stories that should break my heart, but I just hear them. I don't listen and then operate in love. and that's why I am going to try to be better about putting on my listening ears, because who knows what I am hearing but not listening to. Figuratively speaking, It could be beautiful lyrics and melodies in the key of A (my favorite key), and to miss that would be really unfortunate.