The Gift of Hearing

Spiritual Lessons from Hearing Aids


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Hearing aid. Image: James Musallam. Creative Commons Attribution License. Share Alike 4.0.
Hearing aid. Image: James Musallam. Creative Commons Attribution License. Share Alike 4.0.

I can hear okay, I would tell myself. But more and more often I would hear myself saying, "Could you say that again. I didn't quite get that." Even worse, I began to ignore sentences I couldn't understand.

It was especially hard when several voices were speaking at once -- like the TV going when my wife said something to me. My brain had to work in overdrive to distinguish her words. Sometimes, it would take a second or two to figure out what she said. Not hearing my wife caused tensions in our relationship.

Higher Frequencies

Finally, I decided to get my hearing tested. The audiologist put me in a sound-proof cubicle and gave me earphones to wear. Then she pulsed to my ears tones at different frequencies, first to the right ear, then to the left. I was asked to lift a finger each time I heard a tone, no matter how faintly. The doctor took that data and plotted it onto a graph.

She reported that I had moderate hearing loss for the higher frequencies, but pretty good hearing for the lower tones, similar in both ears. The problem is, she explained, that it is in the higher frequencies that we hear consonants. No wonder it has been hard to decode words without hearing those consonants clearly. Okay. Time for hearing aids. Thank God for his grace to be able to afford them.

Getting Used to Hearing

Finally, I was fitted for hearing aids. They took some getting used to because for the first time in years, I am now hearing higher frequency sounds. Wow! I'm not used to that. My brain will adjust to it, the doctor tells me. Be patient.

I am finding that I can hear my wife more clearly. I don't need captions for the television. But what really caught my attention were the birds. Now I can hear the birds in our woods chirping and tweeting happily, raucously, joyfully. Oh, I'm sure I heard them before, but not with the same intensity and clarity. Their calls were at such a high frequency that they were diminished with my hearing loss. I hadn't really noticed the beauty of the birds around me until yesterday morning.

I wonder what else I've been missing?

Listening to God

This brings my thinking to what I learned when preparing my study, Listening for God's Voice: A Discipleship Guide to a Closer Walk (JesusWalk, 2018). I concluded that God speaks to his children, but so often we just aren't listening. Or we aren't tuned in to hear and discern his voice from all the clutter of messages and other voices in our head.

Humans usually start with excellent physical hearing and sometimes gradually lose it. Spiritual hearing is different. When we are born again, we normally don't suddenly gain the ability to hear. Most often, listening for God's voice is a skill we learn as disciples.

It has been my experience that the training begins in quiet situations -- taking time for God every day to worship, read Scripture, and to pray -- and listen. We learn to discern his voice in the quiet times. But once we begin to get that, we find that we can hear his voice even when other conversations are going on around us.

Seek, and you will find, Jesus says. Listen, and you will begin to hear.

More Precious than Gold

Getting adjusted to hearing aids has taught me how very precious is the gift of hearing. In Psalm 19, David extols God's words, his instructions, and their supreme value to him personally.

"More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold
Sweeter also than honey
and the honeycomb." (Psalm 19:10, KJV)

When we fail to listen for his voice, we miss so much. We are without the comfort and instruction of his wisdom that he longs to share with us.

God doesn't talk to us constantly. But when he does, we want to be able to hear the higher frequencies and discern his voice with clarity.

Let me quiet myself before you, O Lord. Let me hear you clearly. Amen.

Listening for God's Voice
Discipleship Guide to a Closer Walk

Copyright © 2025, Ralph F. Wilson. <pastor@joyfulheart.com> All rights reserved. A single copy of this article is free. Do not put this on a website. See legal, copyright, and reprint information.

Jesus' Parables for Disciples, by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Discipleship for New Believers


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