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Selective Hearing
As we all know, there are many obstacles to proper communication. Some of the
problems happen when one person says one thing, but the other person hears something
completely different. This is very common. We call it selective hearing and
it affects many people.
Children usually ignore instructions from the parents unless it is something
they really want to do. A parent might say to the child: "if you clean
your room, we will go to the zoo". Going to the zoo is heard loud and clear
to that child. What is not so clear is the first part about cleaning their room.
In Genesis chapter three, we see that Eve finally heard what she wanted to hear.
She was really upset about the command from God, and all it took was the serpent
saying to her that she would "not" surely die. As we see, she did
not die physically, but did die spiritually. This has been a problem for countless
numbers of people throughout history.
We see it every day. We know that some news agencies are biased in their presentation
of the facts, and they usually have their own audience who will pay attention
to what they say. Yet we also know that if an independent news agency reported
something, the listeners hear two different things. That is because they are
pre-programmed by their likes and dislikes, what they believe, and partly what
they want to hear. We see this when a speech is shown, and the commentators
from the two sides respond with completely different takes on what was said.
So we know that preconceived ideas slant a person heavily in one direction or
another. That is why they can hear an identical soundbite from the news and
become convinced of what they heard. The other person is wrong simply because
they did not hear it the same way.
We spend a lifetime trying to communicate to all sorts of people. Sometimes
we need to repeat ourselves often, and still the message is not received. Many
supervisors and bosses learn the lesson of "listening to communicate".
In simple terms, the boss tells the employee what is expected, but instead of
letting them go attempt what the boss wants, the boss needs to ask the employee
if he/she understands the directive, and the boss should ask the employee to
repeat the instructions so that there is very little chance that miscommunication
took place. Yes, sometimes you have to treat grown up people like children if
you want something done right.
Now, God has given us His instructions in the page of the Bible. They should
be simple enough to understand, but we find people getting it wrong all the
time. Many choose not to follow the instructions and choose to do as they please.
Some may ask the question: WHY? But you see, it really does not matter why because
God said so, and that should settle the matter. Still, we have those who have
been taught error in the past, and understanding the truth is often hid from
them because of their background.
A person can speak the truth, but the person who does not want the truth will
hear something else. Often a person may speak the truth trying to be as kind
in the matter as possible, and the listener will hear hate speech and reject
it totally. So let us work to remove the barriers of communication and open
our conversation.
By Carey Scott
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