Well, welcome back to another session of Struggling Well. And as we enter to this And it's a special week in our lives this week because we're celebrating this week 49 years of marriage.
This week?
Yeah.
Uhoh. What's No, it's not this week.
Yes, it is this week, Suzi.
Oh my gosh. oh. It Oh, sorry.
I know you want to go out and rush out and buy that present for me for our anniversary. Yeah.
but you know, as I think about that, Suzi,
what today? Oh,
sorry. I am so sentimental. Just
Sorry. Okay. Happy anniversary, Jenny. It's been on my mind.
Yes, I know.
I love you.
It's when this is being released. It will be on the week of our anniversary.
Okay. Okay. So, that's why. Okay. Gotcha. I'm with you.
Have fun editing all that, too.
Yeah. Oh, I edit it. It's more fun that way.
Okay.
Okay.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Yeah. And so, one of the things that I would say of the many things that have been struggles for me in the 49 years of marriage is always hearing you.
Oh,
right.
Yes.
That's been a fairly consistent theme. I don't hear you. And that has to do with what we listen to and That made me think about the fact that it's hearing is an important thing. Six times in the gospels, eight times in the book of re revelation, Jesus says these words, "Whoever has ears, let them hear."
And you go all the way back to the Old Testament to the Psalms. And in the 40th Psalm in the verse six of the 40th Psalm, David says this, "As sacrifice and offerings, you do not you're not delighted in sacrif ice and offerings. You're not delighted, but you have given me an open ear." And the idea of an open ear, it in the Hebrew that word is it's an archaeological word and it means to excavate or to dig through dense material. And I think what a great word when it comes to our hearing because we got to get through some dense material, namely our own heads, to be able to hear somebody. And so, but that's my thought. is what does it take to hear God's voice?
I think that's hard because we want to hear God's voice and but I think it goes back to some of what we talked about last week, which is we have this path and we think that it should be the right path. So when God says something that feels contradictory to it, then we don't we hear it, but we don't listen to it because there's a difference between hearing and listening. And the idea of the dense material. I think for me it's repenting of my own arrogance to get my ears open to dig through all my own preconceived ideas of how life should work.
Yeah. And I think the other thing that comes into play when it comes to hearing the voice of God is we hear so many voices and the voice of the enemy can be a strong voice. And what does it take to hear God's voice over that voice? Sometimes it just comes down to sitting silently with him and listening to what he has to say.
as I listen to the way he talks about life through his word, the written word, and I listen to what the spirit of God has to say in my heart and in my life. Do
you know, I think that, our own conversations with one another, not just you and me, but you know, in general, we often times are getting ready to say the next thing before the person while the person the other person is talking. And so it takes a lot of discipline and concentration to not jump to the next thing that you want to say, but to sit and listen and really let it, you know, wash over you what they're saying so that you can well, first of all, the person then feels heard. but it's not like a pingpong game where you're hitting the ball back and forth and who can get the better shot. But it's listening is really hard. I find it hard.
yeah, there are lots of things that can be distractions when we are trying to listen to somebody and sometimes it is clearing the deck of what's in front of me to be able to listen well to hear. sometimes that dense material to go back to the Hebrew word I is all the distractions that are present when I'm in a room and I'm in a setting and I have to listen to somebody. so it's not an easy thing to do.
One of the things David says earlier on in the psalm is he says, "I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry." And then it talks further about he drew me from the pit. He set my feet on a rock, etc. But that those first few words, I waited patiently for the Lord. And that's something that I believe that most of us that follow Christ that we struggle with that. And when you look I'm going to make a jump here. When you look back in the New Testament at the disciples often times where they got in trouble was and I don't mean trouble like you know they had to be punished for it. But they got themselves in funny places is because they didn't listen to what Jesus was saying and they misinterpreted what he was saying. And I wonder if that's why some of them were thinking he was going to bring a kingdom on the earth because they weren't really listening.
Yeah. Or they heard what they wanted to hear. and so as you think about it this week, and as you think of I love the visual picture of that Hebrew word to dig through dense material to open my ears. What's the dense material that is in your life right now that would prevent you hearing the voice of God? And here's another question that I think we need to ask is do you want to hear from him?
Right?
Because if you want to hear from him then there are some easy things or not easy but practical things to do and that is get in the word of God because he has spoken. Remember the word is about him. It's his story and our story is in there but it's his story and he is telling us how to live in this broken world but he's also more importantly telling us who he is. And so, you know, you want to know what God's will is for you in a certain situation. Well, have you asked him about it? Have you waited? that's a hard thing to do to sit and wait. We feel like, no gosh, I can't I've got you know, I've got a schedule. I've got things I have to do as opposed to sitting and waiting for him to speak. And then I think we're all like, well, will he how will he speak? Will he really speak? Well, again, I'm going to take you back. Go to the word of God and sit with it and just wait patiently.
And so now that we celebrate another year of being married,
happy anniversary.
I hope you will wait patiently for me to hear you.
Oh yes, I Yes, for sure. But let's celebrate our anniversary like big time.
Okay. Have a great week.