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With Listening Ears

Since moving into our new house, Tanya and I have found ourselves to be really happy. The house is in a good location, nice neighborhood, and is very well-suited to our needs. We even get along very well with our neighbors... but not their dogs. Nearly every time we walk into our back patio or backyard, these dogs start barking as if we had just descended into their backyard, from a helicopter, armed with more guns than a survivalist. And to top it all off, they're just an inch or two bigger than my shoes. As time has passed, my own aggravation with them has only grown, often testing my patience far more than I would care to admit. 

 

Recently however, as I was putting the lawnmower back in our storage shed, I realized that I could not hear the dogs barking. So, I looked for them only to realize that, by the looks of them, they were not only right in front of me, but were partaking in their usual routine of obnoxious barking. While I was watching them, I realized I couldn't hear them over the worship music that was playing through my ear buds... the worship drowned out their noise. 

 

In our lives, as we walk alongside each other in the Christian journey, we can often hear the barking, the aggravating noises, of the world. This can take many different forms for each of us, but whatever, or whoever, they may be, they have the ability to distract us from the task at hand - living Spirit-led lives for the transformation of the world. But what if we invited the praises of God, the worship to God that should be our lives, to drown out the noises of the world? What if we got so caught up in who we are called to be and what we are called to do, that the noises of the world no longer took us away from the calling we all have on our lives? I am not calling for us to ignore the pain-filled cries of the world, for we should never turn a deaf ear to those, but to the annoying noises that only find success when we choose to give them more attention than they deserve. Perhaps if we spent less time getting upset about the noises of the world, and spent more time caught up in the praises of God, we might do a better job of following Jesus. 

 


Robert A. Perales

 

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