The Art of Listening
Prayer is first of all to do with listening. Our destiny as people has to do with how we respond to God’s word. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).
Jesus describes four ways of receiving His word, in the parable of the sower. Each time we receive a word from the Lord our response will be one of these. Luke 8:4-15.
4. And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, 5. “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
9. And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10. he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ 11. Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12. The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. 14. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15. As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
1. Path
Paths in Biblical times were formed through people walking over the same ground through a field. The seed which falls on to the path is a picture of a person who is hard and cynical, maybe through bitter experience of being trodden on by others. Possibly he or she has trusted people, or even trusted the Lord and then felt let down. Most of us are not totally hard if we are believers, but perhaps we have become hardened in certain areas. Maybe it is in the area of healing? We trusted the Lord to heal someone and they later died. We harden our hearts and determine that that area is not for us, it is not our ministry. We become like the path every time the Lord wants to speak a word of healing to us or through us. We want to believe but find we can’t.
Ezekiel 36:25-26 shows us that we can choose what kind of a heart we have because we choose whether or not we allow God to change it. Let’s be honest with God and confess our areas of hardness. We can then ask Him to change those areas of our hearts to flesh. Flesh can of course be hurt again, but it can also respond with joy to the word of the Lord. The wonder of the cross of Christ is that it can make the most hardened heart soft. Mary Magdalene could have given testimony to that. She had been hard, she’d been used and abused and demonised. However she had let God touch her and change her. She became a faithful follower of the Lord, and the first to see Him after His resurrection.
2. Rock
These people accept word quickly, but when the cost becomes apparent they wither. Abraham’s father, Terah, set out for Canaan by faith, but then chose to settle part way, in Haran (Genesis 11:31). It costs to live by faith. The word came again to Abram and he obeyed.
‘He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.’ Jim Elliot
Don’t let a rocky heart stop you obeying God and don’t be stopped by failure. If you’ve heard and not obeyed because of the cost incurred, then there’s nothing else to do but repent. God is gracious to forgive. The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
3. Thorns
This is when worries, fears, doubts, low self-esteem, lack of faith, and materialism stop us from pursuing God’s word. Many of us find ourselves in this section where our hearts are not so much hard as weedy and thorny.
Zechariah prayed for years for a son, but when the word of the Lord came to him he said, “How can I be sure of this?” (Luke 1:18). He then goes on to list all the reasons why God’s word could not be fulfilled. He was probably disillusioned and maybe even bitter. He’d been praying for years and had long ago given up hope.
When God promises us something we’ve longed for, do we look at the problems and say, ‘It’s not possible’? When God asks us to do something we feel incapable of doing, do we say, ‘I can’t because ...’
We need the Holy Spirit to weed our hearts. Zechariah had nine months of silence. He missed the joy of sharing God’s word and speaking it out in faith. Yet his faith was quietly being built.
He watched the miracle grow in Elizabeth and responded to the Holy Spirit’s ‘weeding’. After the nine months of silence, his first words were ones of praise, and instead of the tone of bitterness, they were prophetic (Luke 1:67-79).
Jesus was crowned with thorns. He has taken our fears, inadequacies, low self-esteem and anxieties into His death. Each one of us can allow the Holy Spirit to minister the reality of that into our hearts. We can put every thorn into the death of Jesus and walk free into faith.
4. Good soil
This represents those with a noble and good heart willing to hear the Word of God and retain it. Jesus’ mother, Mary, is an example of someone with this kind of heart. Like Zechariah, she too asked a question when the word of the Lord came to her - but not in unbelief. She asked in faith when the angel spoke to her saying, “How will this be?” She knew it would be, but she wanted to know how, (cf Zechariah: “How can I be sure of this?”). Mary had no pattern to follow, no human model to encourage her faith. Zechariah could have looked back to Abraham and Sarah. Mary received God’s word and simply believed it. We don’t need to be afraid to ask the Lord questions, the bible is full of prophets, kings and ordinary men and women who did. The Lord delights in our questions if we ask them in faith.
The answer to ‘how?’ always has to do with the Holy Spirit coming upon a person. God’s work is never by might or power but by His Spirit. Mary chose to own the word, “May it be to me as you have said”. This is an important principle; we must own what God says to us.
God’s word usually carries a cost, and for Mary it was her reputation and even possibly her life that were put at risk as she would have been perceived to have been pregnant out of wedlock. Mary’s obedience brought salvation (Jesus) to the world. Our obedience will also bring salvation (Jesus) to the world. Dare we take God at His word?
Whatever the state of our heart we can allow the Holy Spirit to make it into good soil. He is the gardener, and if we let Him, He will remove the stones, break up the hard ground and pull up the weeds. The thing he requires of us is honesty, that is admitting our hardness, and wanting to change. Every time we receive God’s word in the good soil it bears fruit 30, 60 or 100 times what was sown. As we develop the art of listening and receiving His word, so our prayer becomes more accurate and powerful.
Assessment- The art of Listening
Prepare a testimony that you can share in a group of how - when He has sent His word and you have yielded to the Holy Spirit - God has dealt with ‘hardness’ or ‘rocks’ or ‘thorns’ in your heart.