Are you listening

November 22, 2024 | 24 comments

“Are you listening to me?” my wife asked three times before she finally got my attention.

I was absorbed in reading a book and had successfully blocked out hearing anyone else talking around me, including my wife.  Oops.  Once she got my attention, I did listen!

Later, I drew parallels with what happened with my wife to what might happen between us and God at times.

God is always speaking to us, sharing inspirational ideas, wisdom, intelligent ways to proceed, words of comfort, and views of reality that make life a good experience.  But the questions beg an answer, “Are we listening?  Are we paying attention?”

If our attention is absorbed elsewhere, like me reading my book when my wife was trying to get my attention, and committed to blocking out any distractions, messages from God may have a hard time getting through.  

To prosper, shut down the blockers!  Keep thought wide open to messages of Truth and Love coming from God.

Master and avoid blind pursuit of selfish interest, constant examination of the physical body, indulgence of sensual appetites, and any other material sense distraction that pulls thought away from Spirit and gets it focused on something material.

Love God more!  Truly appreciate what God has to offer that makes life a good experience.  

Keep your mental ear wide open to God’s helpful ideas coming your way.  Listen.  You’ll love what you hear.

24 thoughts on “Are you listening”

  1. Good Evan:
    Thank you so much for this inspirational advise. we always tries to focus on what Hod is saying, he only tells what is good. Father-Mother help us to listen to yours words.

    1. Thank you John B and Pat C for directing thought to Psalms 46:10:

      Be still and know that I am God.
      Be still and know.
      Be still.
      Be.

  2. “I will listen for Thy voice, lest my
    footsteps stray.
    I will follow and REJOICE
    ( all the rugged wry)
    Listen and rejoice.
    Listen, follow, rejoice.

    Thanks for listening Evan, to share,
    but that is an every SpiritView
    occurrence.

  3. What was the book? It sounds good.

    More seriously, or not, the situation reminds me of a pastor’s wife who was asked by a member of the congregation what it was like to be married to such a perfect, Godly man. The pastor’s wife had difficulty coming up with a suitable answer.

    Good idea to listen for God’s plan for today.

      1. I’m glad you found it amusing. I took a little risk. Little things amuse me which sometimes shouldn’t. Seinfeld said he had a little man on his shoulder who would say irreverent things. His made him $400k a year salary back when; mine can get me fired or something if not careful.

  4. A woman I know turned 98 this week..Her children all remember her saying to them “pay attention” .. She would sometimes add “If you want to be a good person you must listen.”
    Today the mother and her grown children all have a great love for God and they all “pay attention.” They are a joy to know!

    1. Love this. “if you want to be a good person…” What a goal setter for children! Do I want to be a good person? Of course I do. Like my grandma. So I must pay attention.” Lovely addition to Evan’s humble post. Thanks!

  5. These are such words of wisdom. Thank you Evan and All. Sometimes we get
    so absorbed in what we are involved in or what we Think “we” want, instead of
    listening to what God wants .. perhaps another way of understanding or sharing
    that is different from what we believed … is waiting to be explored, but we are
    too focused on something else to see or hear it. Like with you (Evan) and your
    absorption into your book. It wasn’t that you were purposely ignoring your wife –
    but you were so preoccupied in your focus, that you didn’t realize her presence and
    thoughts and not realizingly tuned her out.
    God’s Love is always with us, regardless, if we are paying attention or not. And what
    a treasure that is – to know and realize!

  6. That is a hard one for me sometimes as I have a habit of contrating my focus on the techicalities of what I am doing. But I agree, it is good to have one’s spiritual connection to the divine always open for guidance. Thanks Evan for this post.

  7. We do tend to seemingly get very absorbed in “our own” thoughts and activities, unfortunately causing us to miss out on hearing the wonderful, constant messages flowing from God. Of course there are truly no such thing as our own separate thoughts, as we have only the one divine Mind shared by all, but it can seems so in a mortal perspective.

    How much better for us to go the opposite way, to be so absorbed in listening to God, pondering His word, immersed in thoughts of harmony, wrapped up in spiritual sense that we just don’t hear error’s erroneous suggestions. Or if we do hear them, they begin to seem unreal, distant and far removed from reality, and so lose any power to confound us.

  8. “Sharpening our spiritual senses? Practical spiritual truths—honestly applied—can bring healing” by
    Helen A. Del Negro from the May 10, 1993 issue of The Christian Science Sentinel:
    https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/18zxjbb8hn4?s=copylink

    Evan’s experience with his wife reminded me of the term “selective” hearing that humorously refers to being in a zone of not listening to a significant other or parent when one is talking to them. When a family member’s three year old child is not listening to them, the parents will get down to the child at eye-level and say, “look at me and listen with your hearing ears.” I like this last analogy because it reminds us that we can listen to our Father-Mother God with our spiritual sense. Mrs. Eddy describes ears in Science & Health on p. 585 as “Not organs of the so-called corporeal sense, but spiritual understanding, spiritual perception.”

    1. Thank you, J, your mention of the three year old brings back memories of
      having had taught four year olds, who would pile on to my lap and be eye
      to eye. They were in a program where their families were “labeled” as being
      of poorer means, with struggles that other children their age may not have
      to deal with. I always liked to see each and every one as a child of God and
      to try to help uplift them to more of a spiritual stature, where limitations
      of supply or knowledge were not relevant. Giving them a spiritual boost
      helped them realize their true potential and it was lovely to see them thrive,
      even in circumstances, that to some, seemed to be, quite unfortunate.

    2. This is certainly a very helpful article – very much ,’hands-on’ stuff, with lots of
      useful ideas to work with. Thank you, J, very much.

  9. This reminds me, when a child, my Mom asked me if I wanted some ice cream.
    My Grandfather, a room away, said, “I’d like some!”. On some occasions he would
    have selective hearing and sometimes would pretend not to hear. My Mom and I
    quietly chuckled to each other. We were so blessed to have his love, if he was
    listening or wasn’t. It is like being tuned in to hearing God’s still, small voice of
    Goodness that sometimes whispers to us with such loving care. Sometimes it
    speaks louder, so we can’t help but hear it’s special message, but God is always
    blessing us with His Love.

  10. Dear Evan, thank you very much for your loving treatment today.

    And I also like to read all your loving and inspiring comments and J’s link to a wonderful article.

    Wow, lovely what you say, dear Carol; listening to God’s still, small voice of Goodness. Mrs. Eddy says in SH that this small voice is like a Lyon is roaring so that we can’t help but hear God’s voice.
    Yes, J, I also love Mrs. Eddy’s wonderful definition of Ears and also of Eyes.

    Oh, am I thankful for such a healing and uplifting and enlightening SpiritView Blog!!♡

    1. Thank you so much for your kind remarks, dear Uta and Maggie. You both
      and others’ comments are always so helpful and lovely. The reference to
      a lion and also about listening is treasured sharing.

  11. Thank you Evan for this topic and for sharing your experience – and, thank you Carol and Utah.
    ,
    Carol, I loved your input, and what you said about your grandfather’s
    `selective hearing`’ It reminds me of a saying that I was familiar to me in my childhood –
    “there is none so deaf as though who won’t hear” For instance, if we, as
    children, were playing and asked to do something and we didn’t
    ‘want to stop what we were doing,, it was like we were
    suddenly deaf. We didn’t respond and pretended we didn’t hear!!
    Awful, when I come to think of it!!!

    But it seems like that today sometimes, when CS spiritual help is offered
    to someone and we get no response. But, as Uta says above, God’s voice
    gets through to us eventually – as Utah says,His voice, like the roar of a lion, can
    be heard in the darkest places, so we can’t help but hear it and respond to it
    when we are in desperate need of help and can’t find it in matter..

    It seems to me also that we do need to really yearn to understand God and
    find out about our own true being as so loved by Him, as His beloved children,
    and then we find ourselves really listening with our whole heart We know that He
    will never desert us, and we can always find His help right at hand,
    when we reach out to Him.

    Thank you everyone for your input – all very inspiring.

  12. I have reread this very helpful and relevant message several times and it is so
    Right-on with it’s assistance and guidance of the truth. The comments, also.
    Thank you, Evan and commenters, so much. It brings home the idea of God being in
    control, not anything that would be a substitute for the divine .. which would be
    mortal mind. Lately, sometimes it seems mankind tends to drift into a crossover from
    one mortal illusion to another, (such as sickness, the threat of war, lack, etc), but they
    are still illusions. Not real.
    Years ago, they used to put blinders on horses, to keep them from getting spooked or
    focussing on things that might sway their thought into something other than the desired
    pathway (of Truth) that was before them. I think we need spiritual blinders to keep our
    vision on the divine … qualities that promote healing and purposeful focus rather than
    what was mentioned with the blind pursuits of “something material”. That paragraph is
    so helpful and the entire message really puts in perspective what we need to try to focus
    on and what we need to try to avoid.

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