Incline Your Ear

For the last several days, the phrase “incline your ear to the Lord” has been circulating in my heart and mind. The Scripture says a lot about inclining our ears and inclining our hearts to God. For example, Proverbs 2:1-5 says, “My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, And find the knowledge of God.” And, Proverbs 4:20 says, “My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.”

The term “incline” here means, to pay close attention to, to mark well, to regard, and to heed or obey. God is telling us to keep an ear tuned to Him at all times. He says that whenever we realize that He is saying something to us, we should pay close attention to it, find out what He is trying to communicate to us, and treat His words and instructions like something important and precious. We are encouraged to take a heart posture of readiness to move and obey, the instant that we hear the Lord speak.

Without getting off track from today’s point, let me say that we “hear God speak” in many ways. Many times we discern the voice of God as a sense of peace, or a lack of peace in our hearts about a situation, decision, or person in our lives. For example, if I notice that a specific member of our congregation keeps coming to mind, I will take time to pray for them, and many times contact them to see what is going on. I recognize in that instance that God may be trying to get my attention. Sometimes, a Scripture stands out to me, or I sense the Lord impressing a certain thought on my heart–this too is often the voice of the Holy Spirit. I am writing this article today, because this particular phrase from Scripture kept coming to mind, appearing in my reading, and coming up in some teachings that I was listening to. After a few days of that, being the brilliant light that I am, I figure out that God has a message for me, and for you as well, so I pay attention and follow up.

Sometimes we get frustrated with ourselves, or with God, because we just can’t figure out how to apply a verse like this in “real life.” Hopefully, by now, most of us have developed that habit of having a daily time in God’s Word and prayer. But when we leave that special time, how do we keep our ear inclined to the Lord? How do we live a busy life in a busy world, and still hear God?

It isn’t as hard as you might think. Actually, you probably do this all the time already. You probably have your ear inclined to something a lot of the time and you don’t even realize it. Here are a couple of examples:

I grew up driving air-cooled Volkswagen Beatles. That air-cooled engine ran REALLY hot by design, so you had to keep good oil in it, and you had to run it at some pretty high RPM’s by American standards, or you would blow it up. Driving those cars in the mountains of Colorado was an art, and I learned early to keep my ear tuned to that engine. Any new noise was noted, processed, and tracked down. During those years, I was also flying hang gliders. There is no airspeed indicator on a hang glider; instead you learn to sense your airspeed by the sound of the air going over the wing and the feel of the glider. Especially on launch and landing, it is essential that you do not stall, but keep the wing moving at a proper speed through the air. Again, you learned to keep an ear tuned to the machine while you were making important decisions and thinking about other things.

In all of that, I became a listener. When I am going down the road, I may be having a conversation with someone, or listening to a podcast, or thinking about the route or my destination, but at the same time my ear is always inclined to the machine. If a new sound appears, I tend to hear it immediately.

Sometimes someone will drive up to where I am standing, or I will get in their car, and I will immediately notice an odd sound coming from the engine or transmission. A belt is squealing, a pulley is whining, a bearing or bushing is rumbling, the valves sound like an old Singer sewing machine because the car is 2 quarts low on oil, etc. I will usually, ask something like, “Wow! What is that?” Many times the startled driver looks at me with a blank expression and says. “What?” They haven’t had their ear inclined to their car at all, and they have not heard the noise. This noise, that is often warning them that something is about to break, has just become background noise to them–part of the clutter of life.

My Mom always had her ear inclined toward the kids. She could have the vacuum cleaner running and the TV on, and if we were fighting in a room on the other end of the house, she heard us. And, if it got too quiet, she would stop what she was doing and ask what we were up to. It was amazing!

So in our busy days, as we are going along, we can train ourselves to have a listening ear–an ear inclined to the Lord. We can be doing other things, but there is always a part of us that is attentive, watching, waiting for God to speak. I will say it again; this is a learned behavior! A Discipline. At first you will need to train yourself to listen for the nudges of the Spirit, but over time, it will become second-nature. This is much easier to do once you begin to treasure input from God. When you are convinced that He is only, and always, good, and that He has the best in store for you, it is easy to keep your ear inclined to the Lord.

Let me wrap this up with one final verse, Isaiah 55:3 says, “Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you-- The sure mercies of David.” Isn’t that awesome?

As New Testament believers, we can couple this verse with John 10:10 and say, “When I incline my ear and come to Him, I will walk in an everlasting covenant with Him, experience His sure mercies, and receive life and life more abundantly from Him.” That’s just good stuff.