Some of it, we have no choice, it’s the noise of life all around us. No surprise perhaps that many choose to immerse themselves in a private world through headphones. So what’s on your playlist?
Some of us are easily contented with the radio or a selection of music. Others want to hear the news, a selection of what’s happening in the world. Some like fiction, also available now on audio, perhaps that’s what they wish was happening in the world. Others like to listen to comedians telling us how laughably ridiculous things are that happen in the world.
What we choose to listen to might actually say something about how we think about the world! Romantic, realistic, idealistic, cynical, how do you perceive it all?
A much loved elderly gentleman in one of my first parishes was becoming very hard of hearing and had just got new hearing aids. ‘They’re wonderful!’ he beamed during a meeting one night. ‘When the wife asks me for money I just turn them down!’
He was joking of course and we all laughed but maybe his words contained a serious lesson worth considering.
In 2 Timothy 3 Paul is instructing a younger church leader and speaks from years of experience in trying to talk to people about Jesus. One sad observation he makes is that people often turn a deaf ear to truth, especially if it is unpleasant or challenging. Instead they have ‘itching ears’ for someone to tell them of things as they ‘want’ them to be.
Understandable but unwise in the long term. Sooner or later we’ll have to face the truth of a ‘day of judgement’ when our Maker sorts things out finally and comprehensively. I say better we address this sooner!
If we do, the Apostle assures us there is a world of comfort, wisdom and inspiration in the One Who is the Truth!
‘He that has ears to hear, let him hear!’ (Jesus Christ in Matthew 11 v 15)