All of a sudden, I could read minds. I was just minding my own business trying to do some grocery shopping, when I could literally hear what people were thinking. The problem was the thoughts were coming at me fast and furious, and I couldn’t tell who was thinking what. I saw something like this on a movie one time, but that guy was getting thoughts like, “hey handsome!” I couldn’t even understand what language my thoughts were in. “Wait a minute,” I realized I wasn’t reading people’s minds, I had bionic hearing. I could hear all the way to China! I could hear EVERYTHING. I scanned the faces of the people walking towards me and none of them were making the sounds that I was hearing. It was crazy! Then I looked back, and about five feet behind me I saw (and definitely heard) a short, elderly, and very loud, Asian woman.
That’s when I decided to officially embrace my geezerdom. Sure at first, I rejected the idea of ever wearing hearing aids, but I’ve come around. They were never mainstream and acceptable like eyeglasses and toupees, but with advances in technology, they have become dare I say hip (well as hip as the word “hip” is anyway)?
Quick sidenote for a Lifehack: if you also want to become hip, go to Costco where you can get a pair of hearing aids for under $1500 bucks (vs. your not so friendly Ear Nose and Throat doctor’s office who will gladly charge you $6k per ear). Anyway, for probably the first time in my life I could hear people who were even behind me, so I was sold.
Being able to hear is nice, but the fact that my hearing aids are blue tooth enabled was the real kicker. Not only could I answer my phone calls directly to my hearing aids, but I could also watch videos, listen to podcasts, and get lost in social media without anyone even knowing. Except my wife, she ALWAYS knows.
She would be there chatting away and pouring her heart out to her loving husband… who was secretly watching and listening to the latest viral trend on TikTok. She would want to talk to me, but I would be distracted by something else. Eventually, she would just wait and stop talking for if/when I stopped being distracted and actually listened to her. And for some crazy reason, these one sided conversations with me always being distracted, wasn’t good for our relationship.
And so it goes with God. Even though I learned my hearing aid lesson after my wife beat it into me, I still can’t go five minutes in silence. TikTok, podcast, Audible, Spotify, sports, Netflix, cat video, ESPN, Facebook, background noise, something, ANYTHING… in my ears or in front of my eyes… and at all times. Never silence.
They say God speaks to us in a whisper. God could be shouting to me through a megaphone, but I can’t hear Him because I can’t follow His simple instructions, “Be still and know that I am God.” Have you ever heard the devil’s greatest trick is to keep us distracted. Unfortunately, I am falling for his trick: hook, line, and sinker and I know that I’m not alone. I’m going to wrap up this Sunday’s Funny so I can simply shut everything down and spend some time with God. Talking to Him and actually listening to Him. I’ll be just Psalms 46:10’ing it up over here, being still and knowing that HE is God.
