Now Ear This!

After a street fight, a Chicago man found himself in the awkward situation of having one ear on his head and another on his stomach. The ear on his stomach had been detached in the fight, and was surgically implanted in his abdomen between layers of skin and muscle to heal there before being reattached to his head. His hospital visitors clowned with him by talking to his tummy.

if we would "have the ear" of someone with whom we want to commnicate, we need to "have an ear for" what they want to say to us. People are more disposed to listen to us if we listen to them. And so is God. When God's people "stopped their ears" to his word, in his anger he told Zechariah, "When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen" (Zec 7:13). God has warned those who turn a deaf ear to his will for them, "Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them" (Ez 8:18). The Lord will "bend an ear" to us only if we habitually "lend an ear" to him.

Ofcourse, he really wants to hear from us, by the way of praise and petition; but he wants even more for us to hear from him, Yet, as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, "Ears are senseless that should give us hearing." Listen! God is speaking now - in his word, by his inspirations of grace, and by the promptings of our conscience.