Hearing Loss and God
The only test I’ve ever failed has been a hearing test. While growing up in public school, I would be ushered into a private room once a year to take the annual hearing test. In this room a visiting physician or the school nurse would conduct the test by putting these enormous sound canceling headphones over the top of my ears and guiding me through a number of exercises. Now, there are a number of ways in which to administer a hearing test. There is the call and repeat exercise where the nurse or doctor speak into a microphone a series of words such as: racecar, railroad, sidewalk, flashlight, etc. My responsibility was to repeat the words back to the instructor. The only difficulty with this test, however, is that as the test went along, the volume of the instructor’s voice started to get softer and softer. There is also the signal tone test where the nurse or doctor presses a button that would play different pitches at varying volumes in my headphones. I would, in turn, signal that I am hearing the sound with a raise of my hand or by the pressing of a button. Similar to the call and repeat exercise, the tones often changed in both pitch and volume.
For a person with perfect hearing, these tests are rather simple, relaxed, and straightforward. You hear all the beeps, recognize all the words, and pass with flying colors. However, for a person with more than 33% hearing loss, these tests can sometimes be stressful, difficult, and discouraging. I still can remember straining and doing all I could to will myself to hear those signal tones as they got quieter. I recall multiple times wanting to ask the instructor to repeat words in the call and response exercise because I missed some part of the word and my brain couldn’t quite make out the rest of the word. It can be mentally frustrating knowing in my head that I should be hearing a tone or hearing a word but not hearing anything at all. I've even sat in silence for about 10 minutes waiting for the test to start only to be tapped on the shoulder by the nurse to let me know that the test was over - I hadn't heard a single beep! I so desperately wanted to hear those sounds and the instructor’s voice, but I was physically unable to hear those quieter sounds. Sometimes I even got to the point that I would guess; I would signal randomly in the quietness as if I had heard a sound or repeat the word I thought I had heard though I knew it wasn’t right. My desire to hear pushed me to fabricate what I wished I was hearing.
Now even though I have significant hearing loss, I have never had an issue hearing my father’s voice. It is something that still surprises me to this day. I can remember distinctly hearing my father’s voice in the midst of sporting competitions. Whether I was wrestling, running, playing soccer, baseball, or basketball, I could not only pick my father’s voice out of the crowd of other parents, but I could hear it plainly and clearly. I could be up at the plate and hear my dad’s voice from out past the 3rd base line encouraging and reassuring me. I could be sprinting down the right wing and hear my dad’s voice from behind the goal telling me to get my head up and find the right pass. This special ability has always been something that helped me feel close to my father because I knew his voice and could hear his above all the others. The other parents could be roaring and I would still hear dad saying, “Good look; that ball was high,” and, “That kid is left footed, make him go right.”
As it comes to Christian living and trying to hear the voice of God we all suffer from hearing loss now and then. We so badly want to hear the instruction of the Holy Spirit for our lives and our ministries. However, as many of you can attest to, God’s voice isn’t always easily or immediately heard. Sometimes God does give quick and direct responses, but more often than not, he responds in his own times and in his own original ways. Then sometimes we don’t hear it at all! It can get discouraging, stressful, and upsetting knowing that we should be hearing his voice yet still not being able to discern it clearly. Similar to my response to all those hearing tests, we get frustrated knowing that God has something to teach or somewhere to guide us but we struggle to hear him clearly. We do all we can: we spend more time in prayer, read more Scripture, and read spiritual self-help books about leadership, spiritual formation, and responding to the voice of God. However, we still fail to hear God’s voice.
But I want to reassure and encourage you: you have heard God’s calling before and you know his voice! You wouldn’t be a Christian now if you hadn’t heard the directing of the Holy Spirit in your life as he led you to enter into a new life through Christ. Just because you don’t hear his voice now doesn’t mean you won’t ever again or can’t hear it currently. We certainly need to hear and get accustomed to hearing our father’s voice. Just as I was able to pick out my father’s voice in a crowd, we need to be able to pick out God’s voice from the rest of the voices calling out to us from the world. We all have voices calling for our attention and trying to direct us to all sorts of different things that would pull us away from the purpose of our ministry. The more time we spend in prayer, meditation, and Scripture, the better we get at hearing and deciphering God’s voice from others. The only reason I was able to hear my own father’s voice so well was because I spent a lot of time listening to his voice. Each of us must do the same; we must spend time listening to the prompting of the Holy Spirit through our own spiritual practice in prayer and Scripture. Then we might not only start to better recognize God's voice but we will continue to hear it more regularly in our lives.