Listening, Part 2

I wish to continue with the subject of listening, that I began in last week’s meditation. Remember that God holds you responsible to listen to what He has to say. He commands you to hearken diligently, which involves hearing with an earnest and constant effort to concentrate upon what you are hearing. This is what Pastor Larry Lilly calls “energetic listening.” It takes effort and thus energy to listen. Now consider the definition of listen.

Listen – To hear attentively; to give ear to; to pay attention to (a person speaking or what is said).

Please note that listening involves paying attention to what is said. Again, it involves the power of concentration. And this is most especially important when it comes to listening to God. A main reason we go to church is to hear what God has to say. So this subject very much applies to our responsibility as church members sitting under the sound of the pastor that the Holy Ghost has set over us to teach us God’s word.

Some of the information surrounding this subject of listening will hearken back to the meditations I did on memory. You may recall that at the end of those mediations I recommended an article entitled: Improving Your Memory: Tips and Techniques for Memory Enhancement. This article can be found by going to www.helpguide.org and typing in the title. Our brother Greg Ohly obviously read this article because he was using some of those techniques to help him remember the names of his twin granddaughters, as he related to us last Sunday. Greg apparently took to heart my comments about memory. Thank you, Greg. This article had this to say about listening and concentration:

New information enters your brain along pathways between neurons in the appropriate area of the brain. The key to encoding information into your memory is concentration; unless you focus on information intently, it goes “in one ear and out the other.” This is why teachers are always nagging students to pay attention! If you’ve concentrated well enough to encode new information in your brain, the hippocampus sends a signal to store the information as long-term memory.

The hippocampus is the structure in your brain that plays a major role in processing information as memory. If you want to retain what you hear, you need to hear it with concentration; you need to listen. Now as for your responsibility to listen to the preaching of God’s word in church, let me make a few suggestions.

First of all, pray to God to help you to listen, to focus your attention upon His word. Consider this prayer for focused attention and the removal of distractions:

Psalms 119:36 Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.
37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken (energize) thou me in thy way.

Secondly, make an earnest effort pay attention. In other words, hearken diligently. Quoting again from the article Improving your Memory:

You can’t remember something if you never learned it, and you can’t learn something — that is, encode it into your brain — if you don’t pay enough attention to it. It takes about eight seconds of intent focus to process a piece of information through your hippocampus and into the appropriate memory center. So, no multitasking when you need to concentrate! If you distract easily, try to receive information in a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted.

Now let’s see how the Scripture puts it.

Proverbs 2:2 So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;

Inclining the ear and applying the heart is making an effort to pay attention.

Thirdly, eliminate care from your life so as to reduce stress. Stress reduces your ability to concentrate. Stress produces the hormone cortisol, which can damage the hippocampus thus hindering your ability to store information in your brains. It is difficult to concentrate and thus to hearken diligently if you are nervous, anxious, and agitated. When your mind is all keyed up, it tends to jump all over the place. It is very frustrating to communicate with someone like that because you can tell they are not tuned into what you are trying to say to them. Okay, I know some of you have had that problem with me. So I am preaching to myself as well. We need to learn to quiet ourselves so as to be able to listen. And a good way to quiet ourselves is to reduce the amount of care that is stressing us. Are you hearing the echoes of a recent sermon I preached entitled On Being Without Carefulness?

Fourthly, get adequate sleep. When you are exhausted from lack of sleep your ability to concentrate is severely impaired. It is hard to listen while struggling to stay awake. Or have you noticed this? I have actually had people tell me they enjoyed a sermon, when I caught them sleeping during it. Go figure! And, of course, good nutrition and exercise improve your overall health including your mental health and with that your ability to concentrate.

Before you come to church, I would advise you to have some quiet time to pray and get your mind in frame to hear the word of God. You can do this on Saturday evening or Sunday morning. Give yourself plenty of time to commute to church so that you are not under the stress of rushing to make it before the bell rings. Remember, stress will interfere with your ability to concentrate. Have a quiet, relaxing drive to church. Connect with the family. Leave the cell phone at home, or if you just can’t be parted from it, at least do not talk on it or turn it on. Minimize your distractions. You are coming to hear from heaven. Get tuned in!

And don’t forget that the quality of your life depends upon whether you listen or not. I shall have more to say about listening next time, God willing.