Welcome back again to another podcast of Struggling Well. And as we said last week, we're still in the middle of Lent. And I'm probably focusing there because it's more of a recent discovery in my life that it's something that is worth looking at and celebrating. And one of again Nan's book, The Way of the Heart, he talks about solitude, which we said a little bit talked a little bit about last week, but he also talks about silence. And what strikes me, Suzi, is that what strikes me is that we live in a culture of words. I mean, words dominate our world and our life. And but that's been true all throughout the ages. And you know, I think about I'm going to go back in a minute to Jesus and the Pharisees and the Sadducees. but you know, I think about even in the church world, we sit and listen to Bible studies. We sit and listen to preachers. We sit and listen to words and words. And I think sometimes we can fall into that mindset that words become sources of information, which they are. And so then theible ible becomes just another book about more information to gather. So I listen to a sermon or I do a Bible study for what purpose for information
as opposed to transformation of the heart.
And in Matthew 22 Jesus is speaking and the Pharisees heard that he had silenced which is interesting the Sadducees. They gathered together and one of them a lawyer asked the question what's the greatest commandment in the law
and they were trying to trap Jesus.
They were trying to trap Jesus. Yeah. And his response was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your souls, with all your mind. That's the greatest and first commandment. The second is that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus, I think in that answering that, he'd already silenced the Sadducees. So he put their words to rest. And so with this, he puts the Pharisees words to rest because he says it's about the heart.
And that's the whole thing to me. Words can be information giving, but can I get past that get down to what is going on in my heart and sometimes that requires silence.
We are a very communicationdriven culture all over the world. It's how we figure things out. It's how new things get invented etc. It's all about communication. But there's something that I think we've lost and that is the idea and the concept that Jesus talks about earlier in the book of Matthew about listening.
And he says if you have ears to hear then listen as opposed that you know I'm here. I can hear all sorts of stuff and I can hear a lot of noise but listening requires a deeper place where I am I'm listening for the intent of what somebody is saying. I'm listening to how what the impact of it is. I'm listening to see if there's something in there that I need to learn and change in my own life. And Jesus said to the disciples and also to the Pharisees and Sadducees, this is my translation. You're not listening. you're hearing, but you're so busy trying to argue against me and who I am and who sent me that you're not listening. And it's not just about hearing sounds. It's about paying attention to what we're hearing and then living in that.
Yeah. And this is I maybe this is just my thought and it might be one that people would go really. But if I'm going to listen to God, I've never heard an audible voice from God. Sometimes listening to God is paying attention in my heart to what he's asking of me as I read his word. but to listen without any direct sound.
Yeah.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, it does. And I think that as you sit with the word and it becomes a part of you putting his word, memorizing it, having it deep in your heart and it just comes and I think that if we aren't listening with our inner ear, I'm going to call it. Then we can also heir on the side of selective hearing,
right?
So when we come to the word, when we come to a sermon, you know, there's the pastor giving us a message, there's somebody in Bible study expounding on the word of God, and we're only hearing either what we want to hear or what we think someone else to hear needs to hear. So the idea of listening is really intense. I think more intense than just hearing.
Yeah. And I think that, you know, when back in the days when I pastored, one of the values that we had as a church was we wanted to be stirred by the scriptures. And what we meant when we said that was we wanted there to be transformation that takes place in our lives. That requires listening. and one of our dear friends who was a mentor to us used to say this, tell me what lingers
and that's the idea that something lingers over what was said. Something lingers over an interaction with another person. What lingers? What's in other words, what am I hearing in my heart
that would bring transformation about in my life.
That's so interesting because often times we leave a church service, a Bible study, whatever, a good conversation, and somebody will say, "Oh, that meant so much to me." Or, "Pastor, that was so good." And if you ask them the next question, what lingers? They're like, "." And some of it is they want to encourage you because what you did sounded good and felt right. But the idea of something lingering is what was happening in my heart and where was spiritual discerning going on so that I'm not just listening to sounds but I'm listening with my whole heart and that's so very different. I think that makes a difference in our relationship with our friends and our relationships with our friends, with our family, with our spouses is really listening. And I struggle with listening as Jimmy can attest. He will tell me something. He Well, he tells me he's told me and I don't believe I said
oftenimes I don't because the problem was at that moment I wasn't listening.
Yeah. And so as we think through this and what we're hoping that can challenge you to stir within you is that the words you hear particularly as you read the word of God as you listen to things that there's also a role of silence that silence plays in transformation that it gets down into my heart so that God can do a work the spirit can do a work in my heart. And our prayer for you this week is that would take place in your life.
Thanks for joining us.
Have a great week.