“Hear, O Heavens, and give ear, O Earth; for the LORD has spoken.” Isaiah 1:2
Rusty:
My firstborn, Rusty was about four years old, out of the tub, dried and wrapped in his towel standing at the top of the stairs, yelling for me to come upstairs to check him out.
You know, the “post-bath mom inspection.” A quick sniff to make sure soap had been used; run a comb through his hair to check that it was clean, damp, and not harboring any critters, gum or other foreign objects. Ears were next and that’s where the inspection stopped!
Armed with Q-tips and ready to swab, I was surprised to see his ear was already occupied by a tiny white ball. “Rusty, did you put something in your ear?” His silence spoke volumes.
As I pulled out my tweezers, tears and loud wailing began. I assumed his four-year-old mind associated tweezers with splinter removal, splinters hurt, ergo, removing a tiny white ball with tweezers was going to hurt. He was right.
After many unsuccessful attempts to remove the tiny white ball anchored in my son’s ear, we headed to the ER. The perceptive ER doctor quickly diagnosed my son’s condition and gathered his tiny-white-ball-removal gear, which prompted more tears and wails from my little man.
The doctor worked diligently to remove the tiny white ball. Finally, the little orb was dislodged and removed. Yay!! Our celebration was brief as the doctor proclaimed, “there’s more.” Not satisfied with the successful implant of one tiny white ball, my son, ever the overachiever, had packed his ear canal with the tiny white fiends.
Over an hour and many tears later, the doctor reached the last tiny white ball which was sitting on the ear drum. With a different tool and skillful precision, the doctor removed the final tiny white ball without damaging the ear drum. Too weary to celebrate, I held my son, dried his tears, thanked the doctor, and gathered our belongings to leave.
That’s when the doctor asked an important but previously unconsidered question, “did you check his other ear?”
Upon inspection, the doctor found the other ear also filled. The now-experienced doctor was able to evacuate ear number two much more quickly, and we were eventually able to head home.
I can now laugh at the situation and marvel at the innocent curiosity of a child. No doubt, my son simply wanted to find out how many tiny white balls he could fit into his ears. His focus was on satisfying his curiosity, not on the consequences of filling his ears with tiny white balls. He didn’t think about how he would remove those little balls or the potential damage that could be done to his hearing.
My son learned the hard way that it was foolish and harmful to put foreign objects into his ears; and he learned that removal can be scary and painful. From that day forward my son was able to “just say no” to any and all impulses to fill his ears with objects that did not belong.
What Fills Your Ears?
When I reflect back on this now-amusing-but-at-the-time traumatic family episode, I think about how easy it is to fill our ears with things that do not belong. Tiny little things that we unthinkingly push, prod and pack in one-by-one until one day we are surprised to realize that we have become deaf to the sound of God’s voice.
Sometimes it is curiosity that prods us to fill our ears. Seems innocent. What would it be like? What harm could it cause? Who would know?
There are other times when we are much more intentional, shoving in a set of heavy-duty, noise cancelling ear plugs hoping to create a sound-proof barrier that will block any conversation that God wants to have with us.
Do you find it hard to hear from God?
Are you a person who thinks that God never speaks to you…not in sermons or Bible reading or Small Group Bible Study or conversations with godly friends, not ever, no way, no how, nada? Maybe you’ve heard encouraging messages from different sources, but somehow, the words always seem more appropriate to someone else. The message does not hit home with you.
Sound familiar?
Then it is time for prayerful introspection and a spiritual ear cleaning. It’s time for honesty with yourself and with God. It’s time to identify the noises that keep you from hearing God. What fills your ears? What has to go?
Be forewarned. As my little guy learned, filling his ears with little white balls was easy. It was the removal process that was scary and painful. You will likely find the same to be true once you begin the process of identifying and removing the noises that have deafened you to the voice of God.
The process will be difficult – maybe even painful. You may find that things you thought innocent and harmless are keeping you from clearly hearing God. Or you may discover a resident sin that you did not realize or acknowledge even existed in your life, a sin that must be repented in order to open your ears to God’s voice.
The Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah, and one of the first deacons of the early church, Stephen, both talked about “uncircumcised ears.” (Jeremiah 6:10, Acts 7:51) Jeremiah says that uncircumcised ears cannot listen; Stephen calls them ears that “always resist the Holy Spirit.”
Ears that cannot listen and are always resistant because they are uncircumcised.
Circumcision of the ears refers not to a physical cutting away, but rather to a spiritual excision of those things that keep you from hearing God’s voice and prevent you from being the godly woman that He intends for you to be. Warning: spiritual circumcision can be exceedingly difficult, and at times as painful as the physical procedure.
Circumcision of the ears is NOT a DIY weekend self-improvement project! It is part of the life-long transformational process of sanctification intended to shape you into the image of Christ. It is also not something that you can do in your own strength.
“And we all…are being transformed into the same image [God] from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord Who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV)
Paul makes two key points in this verse:
First, it is the work of the Holy Spirit in us that transforms us.
Secondly, it is a process. The New Living Translation (NLT) reads like this, “And the LORD – Who is the Spirit – makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image.”
The meaning is the same, the circumcision of our ears – our transformation – is a step-by-step process directed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Transformation is incremental, one-step-at-a-time, and ongoing.
In Romans 12:2, Paul writes,
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (ESV)
Rusty’s Little Girl:
There is an epilogue without which Rusty’s story is not complete. Fast forward, Rusty is now the father of four, the youngest of whom is Ellie.
When Ellie was five, she was inspired by a TV magician to duplicate one of his easy magic tricks – the old in-one-ear-out-the-other coin trick. The following day while crafting jewelry with her big sister, a bead engraved with the letter “E” surfaced. Ellie took that as a sign and decided to try her hand at magic. You already know where this story is headed…
Yes, straight to the ER!
The “E” bead that Ellie had selected was encircled by a tiny, sculpted braid that embedded the bead firmly in her ear canal. For over two hours, two ER doctors took turns trying to dislodge the monogrammed culprit without success; finally, the decision was made to admit Ellie to the hospital so that the bead could be surgically removed.
While waiting for hospital admission, one of the young doctors wanted to make one more removal attempt. Ellie’s mom and my sweet daughter-in-law, Robyn, and I prayed (again) and the bead began to move and finally gave itself up to the doctor’s tool. The doctor victoriously held the bead aloft with an odd-looking pair of tweezers then turned to Ellie and asked if she would like to keep the bead as a souvenir of her time as a magician. A much wiser Ellie declined.
There are valuable, spiritual lessons to be learned here that can be applied to allowing the noises of the world to fill your ears:
Just because you are curious, does not mean you should pursue it.
Just because something looks cool and easy, does not mean that it is.
Just because something looks harmless, does not mean that it will not embed itself and hang on for dear life when removal is attempted.
And just because something appears painless, does not mean that pain will not be involved.
Dear Friend, what we must be pursuing is total surrender to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in our lives: noise-killing, life-altering, self-denying, sin-defeating, God-serving, people-loving, total transformation.
We cannot be satisfied with anything less because God is not satisfied with anything less.
Praise God, He equips us with nothing less than HIMSELF in this transformation pursuit!
GOD says, “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to Me; hear, that your soul might live…”
Isaiah 55:2-3 (ESV)
Live ears wide open.