Who Has Ears to Hear?

You know that I ride a bicycle to work if you have read my blog. It gives me time to pray and observe people. I notice more and more that people are not observing me back. In fact, I don't think they are observing anything. They only look left when coming to an intersection, fail to use their direction signals and often turn right in front of me even though I have a light flashing in their eyes. I will never own stock in a company that sells car insurance! These people are accidents waiting to happen.

I don't think this is how they started. I imagine they began driving as those who looked both ways at intersections, using their direction signals and yielding to the cyclist crossing the intersection. Something happened that has caused them to stop seeing others and even noticing what they are doing.

Do you think they have done that it other areas of their lives? Do you think they have stopped noticing their spouses and children so much that their relationships are also accidents waiting to happen?

I believe people do this with their faith too. They may have started with enthusiasm and carefully sought after the Lord but something happened along the way. They take it all casually now. They can hardly remember a true encounter with God. Its all mechanical at this point. Just doing the minimum.

This morning I will preach to a congregation which will contain some of these people. There will be those who will hear a word from God and obey. There will be some who will know it is a word from God and will choose to ignore (disobey) that word. There will be some who will construct something that was neither said by me or the Holy Spirit. There will be some who will sleep. And there will be some who will stay awake but not hear anything that was said even though they have perfectly good hearing.

Why is this? I believe it is because they chose to disobey for so long that they no longer have the ability to hear. They are like the driver who consciously begins to look only one direction when approaching an intersection who later does so naturally. Disobedience to the law becomes the norm. It doesn't even occur to this driver that he or she should look both directions anymore.

Of course, a wreck changes that for some time. One wreck because they didn't look both directions will result in looking both directions in the future. . . at least for a while.

Will it take a wreck for people to start hearing the Holy Spirit again?

I don't know.

Matthew 11:15 (NIV)
¹⁵  He who has ears, let him hear.