Jesus says, “Let anyone with ears listen!” We all have ears, of course, but do we actually listen with attention and hear the Word of God? Needless to say, the Word of God may come to us in scripture, but if we leave the Bible unopened on the bookshelf or bedside table, we won’t hear what it has to say to us. Or if we hear the Word of God proclaimed Sunday by Sunday in our churches, and let it go in one ear and out the other while our minds are occupied elsewhere, we aren’t listening to the Word of God. Or suppose we commit to reading all the way through the Bible in one year and do, in fact, follow through all the begats and unpronounceable words and get to the end, if our focus was merely on getting through the assignment day by day, we still may not have heard the Word that God had for us.

Listening to the Word of God takes time. Trying it once or twice a year isn’t likely to produce many results, but if we sit with God every day and open the ears of our hearts to listen, we are far more likely to hear the message of love God has for us. Listening takes paying attention. Finding a time and place where we won’t be distracted so we can focus all our attention on God makes it easier to listen, to hear when God calls our name. And the more often we follow through on what we hear, the more our ears are tuned to the Source. Listening takes being alert to the Word however it may come, because the Word of God is not limited to scripture. For example, we may hear it coming from the mouth of a friend or stranger, even from one we perceive as an enemy, from the pages of a spiritual classic or a current novelist, from the actors in a movie or a moment of synchronicity, from the daily news or a blog on the Internet.

As long as we are open to receive God’s Word, however, willing to listen to and act on the message that comes with our name on it, no matter how radical it may sound, we will find, along with the psalmist, that “[God’s] word is a lantern to my feet, a light upon my path,” that we no longer stumble along in darkness, but have come to know the Light of life. And we may become “the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit.”