Hearing Problem

It is one of those things that you can be unaware of until someone or something points it out to you.  For me, it appears I have a selective hearing problem.  It is, I suspect as I look back in my past, a problem that I have had for decades. While I've been aware of it for the past three or four years, it is only recently that I've been able to identify it.  The problem is not my physical hearing, but my spiritual hearing that is impaired.  The spiritual ear that is turned to God and His word is the one that isn't working quite right, isn't able to truly hear without distortion.  I was able to finally label, identify, and realize it thanks to a recent blog by Tullian Tchividjian that I read.  The hearing problem is some inherent distortion that whenever I hear the Word, even when the Word is grace or couched in love and grace, all I hear is law.  What should be words interpreted in love and joy are instead distorted by rules and requirements that must be continuously and perfectly met.   I'm not sure why law is such a strong, overriding filter in me.

This legal filter gets to be a problem with so many aspects of faith.  It distorts my hearing of topics (such as reading the bible, praying, providing service, giving, etc.)  to such a degree that when they are mentioned, I end up hearing them as rigid requirements.  Thou shalt and thou must.  With any requirement, there is then a standard against which I will be judged.....and like King Belshazzar ("..shekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.." Dan 5:27) , I will be found wanting.  Worse than just being found wanting is the accompanying shame and condemnation, old family tapes that still play in my head of  "I'm so disappointed in you".

This past year I have tried to change my hearing.  From a girlfriend who kept telling me "God is love", to readings I was doing in 1 John and 1 Corinthians, even from the popular song by King and Country, I am trying to re-tune my hearing.  "For the greatest of these is love", "God is love", "God so loved the world"

I'm not sure I know how, but I know it can be done.  For years I was careful with money.  Frugal would be a generous term, miserly would be possibly accurate.  Somehow that has changed, and I suspect it has happened because of the example of a couple of people in my life.  It has now become easier and more natural to give.  Whether it is in the tithe at church, or the office candy jar,or picking up the tab from my men's breakfast group, it has become so much easier to give.

So I know change is possible.  The change I need now is to embrace the Great Commandment to love God with all my heart and mind and soul (Matt22:37-38)

I just wish I could hear the  sweet notes of "grace" better.