Gardening the Soul: Listening to God

Isaiah's invitation to come to God's feast has a catch--we  must come with open ears:  Listen, listen to me, . . . Give ear . . . hear me . . . God sounds like a frustrated parent.

"Listen up!"
"You're not listening to me."
"Did you hear what I said?"
"Look at me while I am talking to you."
"We better go to the doctor and have your hearing checked!"

I tell my child, "You're not listening to me." He complains that he did, perfectly repeating my words. But I'm not satisfied because I know he hasn't really grasped the meaning of my words. This was the problem in Isaiah's day and why he literally chided them: in your hearing, hear! As God's child I can read my Bible daily. I can gain mountains of Biblical knowledge. I can memorize long sections of God's word. But I may still be deaf to God's true message.

Katie Cocker, in the Lee Smith novel, The Devil's Dream, was a country singer who married her capable but crooked manager. Wayne was a violent drunkard whose all-consuming passion was to turn Katie into a star by any means. Soon after Wayne was arrested for his money-raising schemes, Katie went to the hospital to recover from nervous exhaustion. As she laid in bed, she could see more clearly what sort of man she had married:

I had to admit, in my heart, that I had known, someplace deep down where I was not admitting it, that he was up to no good. I knew he was breaking the law. I reckon I had come to think Wayne was above the law, or beyond it some way. But I also knew better. You always know everything, don't you? You won't let yourself know you know it, a lot of times you can't let yourself know it, because you can't stand to know what you know.

The fame and the fortune caused Katie to shut her ears to the rumblings of her husband's corrupt life. She muffled her conscience so that it wouldn’t threaten her "good" life. Don’t we treat God this way? We banish any serious thought about the real-life meaning and application of his Truth because we want to cling to our fumbling, though familiar, life. Ignorance is bliss . . . for a while.