Talking was so 90’s …

Have you noticed the change?

It wasn’t long ago the common scene in a Starbucks was that of the room being filled with college students sitting at tables, laptops opens, earbuds in ears, listening to music while simultaneously studying and keeping up with texting conversations on their cell phones.

Today, it’s just as common to see senior citizens with iPads or laptops reading the newspaper online or checking out the latest photos of the grandkids on Facebook while reading Yelp comments about local restaurants on their smartphones.

Our culture continues to deepen its embrace of technology, among all the generations. The result is a heightened, more continuous interaction between people. But it’s also arguable that we’re hearing each other less.

Among all of the major companies providing cell phone service, the least requested service is voice plans. Today, people prefer unlimited text and large data plans so they can communicate via texting and social media.

We aren’t talking to each other as much.

Gone are the days of teenagers spending hours on the phone talking to each other. Today, we’re sending thousands of sentences to each other.

By talking to each other less we are better able to edit what we hear from each other. It’s easier to steer a text conversation to what we prefer, and to avoid receiving incoming messages we really aren’t receptive to hearing. The result is our own opinions are less tested by people who know us well … and who might know better.

In today’s culture, we’re increasingly becoming more selective listeners.

But selective listening has always been a problem with humanity. So much so that Jesus Christ spoke directly to this point:

“So pay attention to how you hear …” Luke 8:18a.

We’ve become adept at designing our own filters for what we hear. Limiting the influences in our lives to 140 characters, a Facebook post, a Flickr album — or, as in the case with God, a pinch of scripture in a short, rushed, early morning “devotional” — impacts not only our relationships, but the stature we give to our own thoughts and opinions.

Sometimes we need big conversations, whole dialogues, the sound of another voice, and extended periods of being quiet and simply listening.

We need to pay attention to, and be careful about, how we hear.

” … To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them,” Luke 8:18.

How do you hear God? How do you filter His voice? Or how do you ferret out limitations and distractions so you hear all that He has to say, and clearly so? How are you listening to others in your lives? Are you letting them speak what they have to say?

Are you even aware of how — and what — you hear?

Scotty