My
reflection today took me back to when I was in charge of training new managers
and re-training some of the more experienced managers. I was sometimes exceedingly frustrated by otherwise
intelligent and savvy men and women who didn’t appear to listen. Despite my best efforts and repeated
instructions, suggestions and admonitions, the managers would take a different
path, turn in the wrong direction or make a mistake. They knew what they should do, but they didn’t
do it. I would sigh loudly and roll my
eyes over their bullheaded behavior that could (and sometimes did) get them
into some serious trouble—a handful of them even lost their jobs over their
inability or (most often) their unwillingness to listen, learn, and follow directives
as taught, despite my frequent intercessions for them with the ‘higher-ups’.
That behavior
resonated with me as I read the account in Exodus today, where Moses intercedes
for those who have built the molten calf to worship it. Moses asked God to relent from punishing
those who had strayed, who didn’t listen to God and Moses. God listened to Moses and relented (Exodus
32:7-14). Then there’s the passage in
John, when Jesus seemed exasperated that people didn’t listen or if they did
listen, they didn’t hear. He told of people searching the Scriptures to find
eternal life, yet they didn’t want to come to Jesus to have that life (John
5:31-47).
It seems to
me that this lack of listening, or perhaps it’s listening and not really
hearing, also characterizes many peoples’ relationship with God (including my
own). We have instructions, suggestions
and admonitions, but we often stray away from what we should do and who we
should be. We don’t hear. We may listen to the Gospel, but we’re easily
swayed by our own bullheadedness. I pray
that I really hear God and that I listen with an open heart and a mind and a
will that are open to God’s way, not just my way.
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