Because this is sometimes a struggle for me, depending upon the situation, I have to work at and practice the spiritual discipline of listening well. It is also intentionally acting upon what is heard by responding appropriately. Listening involves attentiveness…it is attaching meaning to what we have heard. I know this about myself as well…when I don’t pay attention to what someone is saying to me, I will have to ask them to repeat it or just try to fake that I was listening instead of hearing “blah, blah, blah” while my mind was elsewhere! What we choose to do with what we hear involves the activity of listening. We don’t need to actively “do” anything to hear. Unless one is deaf or hearing impaired, hearing is simply an automatic sensory activity. So, when contemplating the difference between hearing God and listening to Him, I fully understand the distinction between the two. Worse yet, I sometimes can’t even remember what I was talking about when my attention comes back around to the person I was originally talking to! I can even do it to myself! I will be talking to another person and all of a sudden, my mind gets hijacked by something I see…or by an interrupting sound. This is always completely unintentional, but frustrating just the same. Dave can be talking and out of the blue, I will point at something, change the subject, or otherwise divert the conversation. You may be having a conversation and in the middle, the person to whom you are talking or who is talking to you gets suddenly and radically distracted by something completely off topic. My poor husband! I can sometimes be one of those “squirrel” people – you know the ones.
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