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BP

To Hear a Word

Posted by Joshua Claycamp on

DoorWords are lovely things. I love the way that a good Word can entice you, draw you in, whet your appetite, leave you asking questions, answering questions that you never thought to ask. I love the way a series of words arranged into shimmering sentences can move your mind, speak truth, and open your soul. A good Word spoken has the power to lift the rusty, dusty, squeaky, creaky, stubborn lid from off the heart, and shine warmth into dark cold caverns. A good Word can stretch and rejoice a stiff and sore spirit. A good Word can throw life like rope below and draw the deep still water of the soul out of the shadow.

Though words are happiest in the minds and hearts of upright souls, words are given to all including those who would torture them. A Word can be manipulated, but it is, I think, still a good thing. In the end, words always serve wisdom and, though they can be rather twisted, bent nails in the mouth of a perverse man, words always return straightened and chastened back to Truth. Words can be used to lay immovable foundations, and words can be used to destroy rickety lies. Words are powerful servants of the Most High, and all words will be called back to His heart at the end of time.

Yes, there is something supremely captivating and mesmerizing about a good Word fitly spoken. It is because they, the words, are spiritual things. A Word carries not just an idea or a thought, but it carries away a small piece of the person who sends it. The words, if they be true and untwisted, can carry hearts across far distances.

A Word sent on its way by its Speaker always expects hospitality and counts on the warm welcome reception of the hearer. But what if the hearer cannot hear? What if the warm welcome and the embrace deserved of a Good Friend’s Word is lost to a failing ear that will not hear?

What if the ear grows deafer still? What if the home loses its hospitality, and there becomes some place better to go, and everywhere is better than home? This is a dark thought.

Can you imagine hearing the raucous laughter but missing the Word that brought the humour? Can you imagine seeing the smiles but missing the compliment? Can you imagine sensing the expectation but missing the question? Can you imagine watching the tear drop but missing the sob? Can you imagine feeling the heat but missing the anger expressed? Can you imagine discerning the conviction but missing the stated Truth upon which it stands?

Can you imagine hearing the half of it, but not the crescendo emphasis upon which the heart of another hangs? To sense that someone has just knocked upon the door of your heart, but as you paused hoping to hear for a second beat, the Guest bored and tired quickly, deciding to wander away. Is it better to have heard but not understood, or to have never heard at all? Should we leave knowing that we missed the Word which desired to be heard, or should the Word have stayed at home, never announcing its presence?

These ears have turned against me. My friends from birth, they are slowly betraying me. Many words are spoken, but they pass by my locked door knowing no one will open to them. To be honest, it brings moments of intense sadness. I am slowly, painfully, reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that I cannot send words or take them, especially in large group settings anymore. I miss too many words... There is an indescribable melancholy from watching the words fly around, running to and fro, but they do not visit at my door. I miss you, words! I miss you!

I stay late at my door into the long hours of the night, straining to hear the word’s knock of a distant heart, hoping that perhaps a stray word will find me. But my lamp burns low as the laughter and good conversation moves on looking for someplace else to go. It is a weary job, but I give it my all. Speakers who send out their words may misinterpret silence as sleepiness, inability to respond as boredom. It is none of these, no. I begrudgingly confess that happy words fitly spoken find no warm welcome in my own two ears. I struggle to hear and grow tired from losing repeatedly to these obstinate traps that will not catch... any more words.

But as the world grows ever more silent to me, and the sadness of that solitary sound seeps in, there is always a Good Word fitly spoken to which I will always bid welcome, and to which I pray my heart will always hearken. The Word always comes to me, even when other words have passed me by. In the silence of these lazy ears a Word stops resolved to knock at my door.

Hello, my Best Friend! Hello, my Good Word! Thank you, dear Speaker to my soul! Thank You so very much for pounding repeatedly at my door! I apologize for taking so long to answer. Thank you for Your patience! Thank you for Your persistence! Thank you for understanding my traitorous ears who will not deliver the words to which I long to hear. Come in, come in! Let me shut the door! It is my highest honor and deepest privilege to see You, Great Word. I love that I hear You once more!

 

Tags: words, speaker, soul, deaf, hearing

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