Ears to Hear
If I had a nickel for every time someone accused me of saying something I never said, I would be a very rich man. I once told a group of pastors before I spoke to them that when I was finished, they would accuse me of saying at least 25 things I never said. They all chuckled and thought I was surely talking about the guy sitting next to them.
When I was finished, it was like clock work. Half the congregation heard one thing and half heard something completely different. I said, "Drinking is not a sin," and half of them heard, "You should all go out and get drunk." I said "Read your Bibles all you want, but if you don't love people, it won't do you any good." Half of them heard "The Bible is not from God and you shouldn't read it." I said, "God isn't gonna leave you just because you sinned" and half heard, "God doesn't care about sin." One by one, they raised their hands and accused me of about 25 different things that had never been said.
I think there is a whole host of ingredients that govern how people hear. Everything that comes to us has to be filtered through a half dozen assumptions before it actually arrives at our head. It goes through our fears, our prejudices, our preconceived notions, our attitudes, our past, our pain, our insecurities and a plethora of delusions and illusions before it finally reaches us.
It reminds me of the ink blot pictures that psychologists use to find out what's really on a person's heart. One person sees a butterfly and another sees splattered blood from a decapitated head. You can also tell a lot about someone by how they hear truth. Authentic truth actually separates the sheep-minded from the goat-minded. It draws a line between people who are thinking from their heads and people who think from their hearts. It causes head thinkers to expose themselves and heart thinkers to blossom.
I know women who are told, "I think you are beautiful," and by the time it filters through all their pain and insecurities, they actually hear, "You're FAT." It's not by accident that this generation uses words like "wicked," "bad," "corrupt" and yes, even "fat," to describe something they think is good. Turning things upside down has been the way of the flesh for thousands of years. It is in our fallen nature to spin everything upside down. We are naturally compelled to do it. The greatest example of this is the entire Christian religion. Almost every single teaching we have today is upside down from truth.
They tell us that God is pouring His wrath out on America when He's actually pouring Grace out upon the world. They tell us that He will turn His face from us and He says He will never leave us or forsake us. They tell us we are His servants and He calls us Sons and Daughters. They say He wants performance and He really wants relationship. These things have been turned upside-down because somewhere in time, someone heard the truth with their HEAD and not their HEART.
When these things go through our inner filters, they have a ring of truth to them because they feed our fears and prejudices and attitudes and pain and insecurities. They speak to the things that speak to us, so they sound true. This is why we've accepted it for so long.
Watching the nation's Pastors react to "The Shack" has provided me with hours of laughter. This book is like the Mother Theresa of books and one by one, these pastors stand up and start taking blows at it like common back-alley criminals. Everyone else sits back in absolute awe at what their pastor is saying about a book that describes God as loving. These pastors are literally exposing their heartlessness for all to see. All they hear in this book is their fine points of theology and rules being broken. They are oblivious to the heart of that book and because they only hear with their soulish ears, they expose themselves to the world in the process.
I used to struggle with the fact that people were divided every time I preached because so many "men of God" told me that if my words were from Christ, they would unite people and not divide. Then I looked in the Bible and found that too was upside down. Jesus actually said He came to divide, and that is exactly what His words did every time He spoke. Truth divides people because it's full of grace and grace has a way of soothing some and infuriating others. If you're broken and down; it lifts you up. If your arrogant and high; it knocks you down.
I think it's the difference between soul and spirit. Some people live soulish lives and some live spiritual lives. Each person hears from the world they've chosen. I think most of us vacillate between the two worlds, hoping to land on the spirit side as much as possible. Truth divides those worlds. It speaks to one world while confusing the other. I would not have believed this if I had not seen it played out time and time again throughout my life and ministry.
I find that when I'm in the spiritual world, I hear what my wife means when she speaks, even if she doesn't actually say it. When I'm in the soulish world, I only hear how what she said affects me. My soulish ears hear from a perspective of self-preservation. They're defensive, suspicious, wary and cynical. My spiritual ears don't even have me or my agendas in mind. They just scan the air for the heart of anything that comes into my path. The difference is that one set of ears has ME in mind and the other is OTHERS-focused. This is why the subject of love cannot be understood with soulish understanding. Love is others-focused.
I have discovered that the only way to position myself to have "ears to hear" is to actively LOVE. When I'm doing that from my heart, I hear the heart of everything around me. The moment I step outside of that position, I catapult myself back to the world of filtering everything through my self-protective front. The bottom line is that LOVE is the only way we can have ears to hear. This is exactly what Jesus was saying every time He said, "He who has ears to hear." He was literally saying, "He that looks and listens through love, listen to this."
Darin Hufford
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Thanks Darin... again, UR COOL!!!
Is that you upside down? At first I thought it was George W. Bush. Are you trying to use this blog as a sublime attempt to promote the Republican agenda? :-D see I'm accusing you of something you never meant. I'm kidding, but someone else might read this who isn't...
"The bottom line is that LOVE is the only way we can have ears to hear. This is exactly what Jesus was saying every time He said, 'He who has ears to hear." He was literally saying, "He that looks and listens through love, listen to this.'"
Bingo. Amen. Beautiful, Darin.
I love this. Because it's so simple but yet so gloriously truthful. Just happy to be a kid, it's sooo simple. I just danced in the kitchen after this.
"Jesus actually said He came to divide, and that is exactly what His words did every time He spoke." You said the only truthful meaning of this verse, because you interpreted it with LOVE. I've seen this verse used so many times as an excuse for division, destruction and death of relationships and realness. And the worst thing is it even feels holy when it is used the wrong way, because we came so far we think that if something hurts us and kills us it's probably God, because He wants us to go the narrow road. We're just so good at twisting things. We're just so good at it. Thank you for your simplicity, Darin. Freeeeeeeddoooooooommm!!!!!!!
Sorry to spam again. But I also come from a drinking=sin environment. I just want to say that I live thousand miles away from you guys but I just got the very same answers when I dared to mention Jesus drank wine. "You want drunkeness! Just an excuse to get drunk! You just want to do what you want!" The funny thing is Paul very clearly says more than once that a Christian can do what she/he wants, but not everythings is good for her/him. In my whole life I haven't heard one truthul sermon on that subject because we are just so scared to death of freedom.
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart....
So many times it is the thoughts and intentions of my own heart I must examine while I am speaking...or listening. Am I speaking or listening from a place of rest..or do I have my own agenda. When I listen from a place of rest..I usually hear the truth.
Hey Darrin, This is one of the best posts I have read on this site. It simply ROCKS!!! I have experienced this so many time I can't even begin to tell you. Just 3 weeks ago we had a meeting in a prison and I brought up the issue of drinking not being a sin and the way some of the guys reacted you would have though I was advocating getting hooked on crack. The beautiful thing that happened was that the people who reacted that way were actually proving the point I was trying to make to the group and the other guys saw it. Religion SUCKS !!
On top of that let me say this. You can delete this if it's inappropriate. One time as I was drifting off to sleep I had this thought " so you want to be more like Christ?" I answered yes, so the response in my thought was " go have a beer with some of your unsaved friends".
anway, an encounter that really made me thing about what it truly means to be Christ Like.
I think of all the fights and discord that could be avoided if I/we would simply take the time to ask questions. This is another reminder to take the time to think before responding. Once again, right on time for me! Thanks, Darin
Sorry, this article is making me think about a-lot of things. I will be done after this.
I guess if people are not accusing us of preaching Liscense to sin then we are not preaching Grace the way Paul did.
I have found that sometimes the words get twisted by the accuser "Can you help me around the house more"? becomes "Your lazy ", or people hear through the pain of past wounds "Let me help you do that" becomes "You don't do anything right" as often told to them by parents when growing up.
This path we are on gets brighter and brighter or to put it another way, precept upon precept, this is our journey to becoming conformed to the image of The Son.
I have found that sometimes the words get twisted by the accuser "Can you help me around the house more"? becomes "Your lazy ", or people hear through the pain of past wounds "Let me help you do that" becomes "You don't do anything right" as often told to them by parents when growing up.
This path we are on gets brighter and brighter or to put it another way, precept upon precept, this is our journey to becoming conformed to the image of The Son.
A pastor of a "holiness or hell" church I attended over 20 years ago would say, "This message is so simple, you would have go get someone to help you misunderstand it." I guarantee you there was nothing simple about the message he preached. There were so many performance-based rules and regulations attached that the word "simple" lost its meaning. Nevertheless, those words came to life for me when the Father graced me to live in the freedom he gives. This grace message is so simple; however, there are many people who choose to and/or allow others to help them misunderstand it for fear of . . . Galatians 5:1 says, "Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you." And with that I say AMEN!
I think it's all very much connected to the way people twist the language itself. They use the word "love", but they don't mean love. They say the word "simple", but it's not simple at all. They just use the word so that the whole bunch of laws or doctrines or whatever they truly feed others with looks more advertisable. In order to be respected they "need to learn" all the language tricks and phrases. But then when the case Darin mentioned happens they get confused, because in their fake language it really means License to sin. I believe it's because they've been raised with chrisitan fake language that simply doesn't even have a way to say what Darin was trying to tell them. I think being Free means to speak in a very plain basic language that even a kid understands.
I think that the main reason why people hear things that were never said is because we are taught everyday to "read between the lines". That is exactly how very many sick doctrines and mindsets were created out of Bible verses. It's because everybody puts different statements between the lines - this way you can alter the meaning to anything you want. I believe that REAL love always speaks straight to the heart and doesn't use the "between the lines" tactics. Darin, you simply don't do it, but the readers are so used to it that they think you actually do and that's why they can hear so many different things. PS - I'm not trying to say we aren't supposed to analyze the Bible. Actually, many hurts come from quoting Bible verses out of context and without understanding 1st century society.
You know Myso I think you really have a great point. I agree with you. We Christians have been taught to hear things that were never said and read things that were not written. That's a very interesting insight. Good point!
Myso and Darin, I’ve found that God does speak to me things that were never spoken or written and I try to keep myself open to hearing him that way. However, even though I may have heard it, I try to go back and determine what the speaker actually said and not accuse him of saying something he didn’t say. Since we all tend to hear through the prism of our own beliefs and experiences, I feel it’s best to clarify with the speaker what was actually said. If it’s someone like you, Darin, whose teachings I’m familiar with, I look at the whole picture and that helps me determine what was actually said.
Aida, I think you're talking about the only good case there is - when you read and listen to what God is trying to say to you according the article you only bring more love and beauty and wisdom to what was actually already said and written. It's like swimming in a beautiful lake. Darin creates the lake and you just swim a bit further and rejoice more. I was talking about the case when the reader doesn't get the point and instead of enjoying the lake tries to dry it up and then claims that the author was trying to present a desert insted of a lake. And that, of course, is not true.
Great point, Myso. I think there is a distinction and you've described it beautifully. Thanks for the additional comments.
Darin - BINGO!
Wow, and its actually so annoying to be around someone who always hears things I have not said, if it is about God or other things. And mostly it only shows how this person thinks about himself.
This is so dead on. This is my first time here, and I see that I am overwhelmed by sheer amazement. There are such things as open free believers! I think im going to dance in my chair. :-P
Absolutely brilliant!
My daughter will not read "the Shack" because of what was said about it by church people. I was greatly blessed by it. I think she would enjoy it too if she could get past what she has heard people say. Very sad.