You daydreaming again?

“Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given—and you will receive even more. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.” (Mark 4:24-25)

I remember being in the classroom as a kid, staring blankly at some object or view from the window, all the while daydreaming some big plan or fantasy in my mind. The teacher would be going on with some lesson in geometry, mathematics, or science, all while I was soaring through space in a rocket ship or sailing the blue seas in search of treasures. The imagination is a good thing when it helps us invent new things that help others, but it can be a distraction when it causes us to lose focus! 

Christ used parables to teach the people because they could relate to those objects or tasks. Sowing seed was common. Lighting a lamp at sundown was everyday practice. Don't be surprised when Jesus uses the most 'common' of things to teach you the biggest of lessons. It is how he helps us come to a place of understanding 'hard things' that are beyond our natural reasoning. As he promised, the closer we listen, the more understanding we will be given. There is no room for distraction when sitting at the feet of Jesus!

When I would turn my attention back to what the teacher was saying, sometimes because she'd pull that attention back with something she said, or just because I had come to an end of 'seeing' whatever had distracted me in the first place, I actually learned something. As my grandson sat talking with me the other day, I learned something new. He said WiFi ran on microwaves, but I had to explore that a bit because it didn't seem all that right. In the end, I found out it was radio waves. One spark of a conversation led to me looking a little deeper to find the truth. Don't be surprised when Jesus uses one spark of a conversation or a text from scripture to help us look a little deeper and discover just a little more about him.

To those who listen...those words are telling. We hear lots of stuff, but we probably only truly listen to about a tenth of what we hear. If that tenth is not what we are hearing at the feet of Jesus, we have a chance of trusting something that isn't true. His intent is to give us knowledge, but to gain knowledge, we must 'tune in', 'listen', and 'learn'. We don't gain understanding of kingdom principles through osmosis or accidentally. It is found through focused, purposeful learning. Just sayin!