for the last several weeks my wife has repeatedly told me i need to make an appointment to go get my hearing checked. she has asked me to do this because with increasing frequency i simply dont understand what she says when she talks to me. our conversations are like a game of telephone where the message transmitted on one end is twisted and convulted by the time it arrives at the other.
"honey can you handle the utility bills?" - her
"you want me to clean the window sills?" - me
this mini-comedy routine has happened one too many times to be considered a coincidence in her mind. she is convinced there must be something wrong with my hearing.
sadly, i think she is right. i think there is something wrong with my hearing, but worse, there is something DEEPLY wrong with my listening. i don't listen to my wife. she will tell me things and even when i hear them, i am not really listening.
"honey, i'm not feeling well, i would really just like to rest " - her
"great, so i'm going to go ahead and make dinner plans with so and so for us and then maybe we can go to the movies together." -me
THAT routine is much more alarming and happens with much more frequency than my mechanical misinterpretation of her statements. hearing, listening, refusing to understand.... i do this to my wife all the time. for this problem, i need more than a doctor.
yes, yes, i'll go to a doctor to get my hearing checked. i am willing to bet $1000 that my hearing is perfectly fine -- the issue is really one of my corrupt and selfish heart. how often when my wife is talking to me am i absorbed in a book? or my ipad? or my blackberry? am i giving her my full attention? almost never. i take our conversations for granted and am nearly always thinking about what _I_ need and want to do next (my agenda) and not fully engaging with her. in those rare moments when i do engage, i catch a glimpse of her beautiful heart and i start to realize how often she is really telling me something quite different from what i am interpreting. how many frustrating moments, days, and weeks could our marriage avoid if i could just stop being somewhere else when we talked? i am just so selfish.
Jesus is the mediator in all relationships. His death and resurrection redirected all the relationships in my life, including my marriage, through Him. when i insert anything between Him and me, i end up screwing things up. in this case, and most importantly, because my wife is the most important person in the world to me, i can't stop screwing up with my wife.
so i am confessing that i have listening problem. a genuine problem caused by my corrupt and selfish heart... a heart that is so focused on getting what IT wants that it refuses to disengage with its selfish pursuits long enough to listen to my wife. i know that i can't change it. i know that i need to confess my need for help from the Holy Spirit. there is no 5 step plan for me to follow... all my own efforts to change will ultimately fall short. i need to be aware of my need, confess it, repent, repeat, almost certainly for the rest of my days.
so i ask for your prayers and for encouragement... i pray that i might be honest enough to see when i am not listening, i pray not to react self-righteously when i (or more likely my wife) identify these incidents. i pray that i don't "defend" my heart by claiming "i'm too busy" or "its just this one blackberry message that is so important i cant pay attention." lastly i pray that i will immediately confess my need and inability to overcome myself before the Lord and therefore my wife. through Him all things are possible -- even turning this wax-eared peccator into a good listener. my hope, as always, rests in Him.
pray for me.
CPP
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