Selective Hearing and Reading

Have you ever read something and thought that it said something different that what is actually written?  You maybe saw it one time and you could swear that it said one thing when in reality, it said something completely different.  I am notorious for this – especially when I write.  I think that everyone knows what I am trying to say and so I don’t feel the need to clarify myself.  I once read as long as the word has the correct first and last letters that people will not even notice that it is misspelled.  If it wasn’t for spell check, I for sure wouldn’t notice, but that is because I really stink at spelling. 

Have you ever heard something and could swear that they said something else instead of what they actually said?  It could be as simple as one word, or as complex as a rumor about someone or something.  You have “selective hearing’.  I know that my 3 year old has selective hearing.  She will inform me that I said something a few weeks back but can’t seem to listen to the word “no”.

It is so easy to misinterpret and to misunderstand people, especially when you are in a hurry.  Most recently, I read a piece of paper that said that I needed to get a copy of a certified birth certificate for my almost 2 year old to go to preschool.  I read it as I needed a certified copy of her birth certificate.  I mixed up where the word was and it makes a ton of difference- one is a copy I can make and the other is a copy I have to spend $14 on, go to the courthouse, get both kids out of the car etc…   So for a month or two now, I have been planning a time to go and get this certified copy of the birth certificate.  My friend was over yesterday and pointed out to me that it said a copy of the certified birth certificate.  I had plans to go to the courthouse today and get my certified copy when the whole time I just need to make a copy here at home.

Have you ever done that?  Mixed things up in your head.  Made things a much bigger deal than it needs to be.  Maybe an e-mail from an old friend or a co-worker or acquaintance.  Maybe it was a conversation that you had that you heard the wrong things and recognized the wrong things.  I know an older lady that always is looking for the negative in everything.  She could be having a perfectly great conversation with you and then you look at your watch and she gets “deeply offended” because she thinks that you don’t want to be spending time with her when in reality you were seeing how much time you had left to spend with her.

I know that there are times that I haven’t asked for clarification from God.  I have mis-read the Bible, read only the parts that I wanted to read so that I got what I wanted it to say.  I have heard God’s calling or heard a sermon and only picked out the parts that I want to do.  So when God says to go and make disciples of all nations in the great commission.  I always heard that I was to go out, not even thinking that ours is a nation too. 

2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”

So what do we hear when we read the 10 commandments?  Do we see just the commandments that we want to see?  Do we not follow them all since not all of them are convenient for us?  Do we look at God’s truths and laws and requirements and just see what we want to see- not looking at the ones that convict us?  Do we selectively read the Bible?  Do we selectively hear the sermons that we hear on Sunday?  Do we selectively hear GOD?  The easy way out is to hear what we want to hear, see what we want to see and do what we want to do – while at the same time, we need to hear, do and see what God wants us to do and THAT is when we glorify Him.