Quick to Hear
- May 7
- 2 min read
Dear Faith Family,
But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like, (James 1:22-25).
Facing the road, he was standing in his driveway. Trashcans on his right. Mailbox slightly in front of him to his left. Between the mailbox and the trashcans was a relatively straight line (probably a well-worn path). Mail in hand he glanced at each piece before he moved it from one box to the next.
We’re drowning in an ocean of information! No one can think (never mind rightly think) about all the information that finds its way in front of our eyes and ears daily. (Insert pause here to look around and consider all the eye and ear stimulus you’ve encountered today. My guess is you can’t even remember all of it!)
A dilemma that does create, right? When we encounter more stimuli than brain cells, we’re forced to choose which information is worthy of our attention. The information deemed unworthy is either delayed or discarded.
Can I ask a question? Drowning in the “Data Sea”, what is your information of choice? In other words, what information is consuming your mind? Who’s stealing all your brain cells? Here’s my concern. With all its competition, is the Word of God taking priority in your life? Or is there a well-worn path from your mailbox to your trash bin? Is God’s Word in the one proverbial ear and out the other?
God’s Word is not just more information floating in the “Data Sea”! James challenges us to engage with the Word of God rather than taking a peak and walking away. How do we make God’s Word the priority? Three practical thoughts.
One – Remove the debris. Make sure that nothing else is in the way – nothing else has become a higher priority than God’s Word. Why not stop right now and ask God if there is any debris that needs to be discarded? Two – Meditate on God’s Word day and night (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2 – interesting that both of those verses prioritize the Word of God at the beginning of their respective book of the Bible). Spend some time thinking about what you read. Ask some questions about the text. And three – Put God’s Word into practice. Do what it says. Be a doer as well as a hearer. What is God’s Word calling you to put into practice today?
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