Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.  

(Isaiah 55:3a, NRSV)

One of my graduate school super powers was being able to block out the noise and activity around me. I could write while someone else watched television and read in a noisy, crowded cafeteria. Traffic noise, neighbors arguing, popcorn popping – none of it could break my focus on the academic task at hand. That skill served me well in those years, but it should have come with this warning:

Do not mistake this work skill for a life skill! Taken out of its proper context, it causes more harm than good.

Efficiency in a task at the expense of awareness of those around me isn’t a virtue if the task is trivial. Conversation around the dinner table, listening to my husband and sons talk about their ideas and daily adventures – these shouldn’t be tuned out in favor of doing a Sunday crossword puzzle every Sunday afternoon. There’s a time to focus on a single task, and a time put it away to engage in the world around me.

I think that’s what Isaiah is saying: attend to what is important and life-giving. Listen, don’t just hear the voices of others as background noise. And if this is true about the people around us, isn’t it also true of God?

An abundant, godly life requires active listening to God’s call, the self’s disclosure, and the deepest longings of neighbor. If I incline my ear to these, if I seek God, only then will I truly live my life.

[For the full text, click “Isaiah 55” above.]