Listen Between the Lines

Have you ever considered the concept of listening between the lines of what’s being said? The obvious answer to “What do you hear” is that you hear what you listen for. Then, let’s rephrase the question, “What are you listening for?”

A recent comment made me consider what I’m listening “for”. Did you know most of us listen so that we can give a response? Instead of understanding what is being stated, we listen and formulate the words we want to say in response.

Perhaps we’ve been approaching this wrong!

Maybe a deeper approach is attempting to “Listen between the lines” to understand what is being said by grasping for understanding of “what is not being said!”

Social Media Networks have some use in the world, but you must listen for the better sound than simply following those who post insane and inane comments that clog up the system with wasted electronic data.

There is a solution to the question of what you hear (read, see, experience) on Social Platforms that can clog your system with negatives, especially when you are needing a positive.

You need to learn to listen better!
You Need To Work Hard to listen to the “whole story”!

Social platforms can be beneficial…Maybe

Social platforms may have a unique benefit to help you connect the dots from friends to strangers to a friend. Why? So that you find old friends and remote family, connections from some bygone era. You simply need to train your ear to hear those certain sounds that lead you, instead of drowning you out!

With social platforms I no longer keep an address book, write letters to addresses that may be out of date, wasting time and resources. With the advent of social platforms, I have kept my narrowed focus of connecting for a purpose. I take up missions on finding certain people. People I need to hear from. People who, at one time, meant something to my life.

Ancestry research is a lot like getting drowned out by all the noise that comes from millions trying to track their roots. It can be overwhelming like a Twitter or Facebook feed!

What is beneficial about social platforms are the hidden benefits you receive that lifts your spirits! These benefits can never be minimized, and they probably never happen anywhere else. You hear a certain sound between the noise of the platform and give, as well as receive, blessings!

Blessings come in many forms. Over recent years I have connected with several that have given me some much needed spiritual lifts. At a time when it seems I am always giving… and in one respect that’s my role in life – a caregiver as a pastor, a husband, a father, a sibling, and a child. There comes a time that I need an oasis to refresh myself from the busy life and in this barren wasteland.

Here’s my thought today.

A life lived with constant loud discordant sounds can overwhelm and drag you down! When you are at your lowest point, you need someone to help pull you up, give you some strength, and help you find respite from the clamoring sounds of the world around.

Think about it. Long before there were Social Platforms, in the midst of the crowds and busy life of rubbing shoulders with real live people (!!), even Jesus recognizes the overwhelming world and helps us learn to withdraw from the press of the crowds and the busy life.

And He said to them,
“Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”
For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.
So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves.
(Mark 6:31-32 NKJV)

Sometimes You Draw Away!

Sometimes Jesus causes us to draw away from the busy life and the crowds that have great demands. The needs will always be there, but the necessity of withdrawing can be imposed upon by someone who sees the broader picture. This does not mean he ignores the need or the voices clamoring for attention, He simply recognizes our limitations! We need to withdraw from the racket and spend some moments of rest.

You see, even when we are drawn away, the voices are still there. Clamoring. Calling. Trying to get his attention. Speeding ahead, all the while wanting him to notice them.

But the multitudes saw them departing,
and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities.
They arrived before them and came together to Him.
And Jesus, when He came out,
saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them,
because they were like sheep not having a shepherd.
So He began to teach them many things.
(Mark 6:33-34 NKJV)

One translation describes that when Jesus saw them, “he went right to work…” It does not say that He had to provide for their welfare in the form of finances or prayers. His work was to teach! Listen, that is as draining as anything else you can imagine!

Reading Between The Lines

I do not see that he complained of the people or their needs.

This is the human part of me right now – when I need to withdraw and be just me, I can easily disconnect from the world of “busy” by ignoring the phone, leaving the computer turned off, get on my tractor or in my truck and just … leave… I am fortunate that no one is clamoring for my attention that they follow me everywhere I go like the paparazzi follow the stars and starlets. And if I get interrupted, I’m likely to complain… But Not Jesus!

I see Jesus rolling up His sleeves and despite the probable disappointment of His disciples, and He goes to work. After a little while of his teaching, Mark describes the disciple’s attitude:

When the day was now far spent,
His disciples came to Him and said,
“This is a deserted place, and already the hour is late.
Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages
and buy themselves bread;
for they have nothing to eat.”
(Mark 6:35-36 NKJV)

Our Focus, or His Focus

Sometimes we selfishly interrupt the work of Jesus! We step into the moment and put our foot down and declare our time schedule and our priorities to the Lord!

It’s almost like we are not listening between the lines of reality, need, nor desire.

Not knowing what the crowd was like, or exactly what His teaching was about, I can only imagine the disciples looking at their portable sundial and feeling anxious about the time of the day, and probably, what their personal needs were more than the people’s need or even the needs of Jesus.

Jesus tells them to take care of the needs of the people, but they were a long ways away from Safeway.

Let me give you a Paul Harvey moment, “The rest of the story…”  –  the feeding of the thousands is a story we still talk about today. We sing songs with the children! We write books and articles about the meaning of the little boy who happened to have his own lunch, five little loaves and two fishes, the organization of the crowd into numbered companies out on the green grass, the blessing – breaking – distribution, and finally the twelve baskets of fragments remaining.

This part of the story is told over and over again. Did I say “over”? Again!

Yet, leading up to this story, Jesus sees that His disciples needed their rest. They needed to withdraw from the crowd. Something to learn from this is that often the “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…”

Read between the lines!

Regardless of the needs of the disciples, the needs of the followers took precedent.

At the completion of the dinner, the twelve baskets could easily feed the twelve disciples. But what about Jesus? Was there nothing for Him? Jesus needed something different and more than just the satisfaction of caloric input! In John 4:34, “Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” His sustenance was not of this world and the satisfaction that comes from sitting at a meal. His sustenance came from accomplishing the work set before Him and to Finish The Work!

After the feeding of the thousands, Jesus sends the disciples away by ship to Bethsaida, and He withdraws to the mountain to pray.

Read between the lines! Some alone time! Prayer time! I suspect this was his rest and collection of his senses time so he could continue forward!

It is not recorded that He fed himself before the teaching and the miracle, nor at the conclusion of the feeding – we can only surmise that He satisfied His own personal needs in such a way that it was not needed to be recorded.

This Is My Point

You have to be the one to take ownership of your life and learn when to withdraw for sustenance! Along the way, nuggets of Life-Giving Word will come to sustain you. Learn how to take these nuggets and turn them into a meal of substance. Learn that the supplier of all your needs comes from God, yet it often comes from these little moments of time.

David, a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22), understood this concept in part when he was in the wilderness of Judah.

A Psalm of David When He Was in the Wilderness of Judah.
O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
(Psalms 63:1 NKJV)

Read between the lines! He looks at his life and he realizes his spiritual and physical needs. So, he does not waste the day wishing for a solution. He rises early and seeks God – without the pastor asking him to, or without some scheduled event of the church forcing him to go to God!

Read between the lines! He takes Ownership! He becomes responsible for his own spiritual and physical well being. What causes him to seek God? Something triggered the moment that made him realize how barren his life was at that moment… After all, it did say he was in the Wilderness of Judah!

Backtrack a Moment

So, getting back to my social media comment earlier.

A friend and I have been reconnecting through Facebook. This came from that dot to dot connecting path I described. One friend has a connection I do not have, and voila’ I now have that connection. I have been sharing various status updates and enjoying some conversations about school years over four decades ago and at the end of the last message this morning there was a scripture reference. Psalms 118:24. Now, I am a student of the Word, but my mind has a hard time connecting scripture references to content. I really have to go look it up!

So, I immediately turned to Psalms 118:24 and received this revelation of scripture:

“This is the day which the LORD hath made;
we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Read between the lines! What a wonderful scripture to use in a daily social media connection! It was a refreshing moment to sit back and take on the thoughts for the day as being Glad that God made this day and has given it to me to be profitable for the Kingdom sake!

Do The Same With Scripture

When I study, I look at what leads up to the scripture I am interested in, and what leads away from it.

We all love the Heroes of Faith chapter (Hebrews 11). What led the writer to discuss individuals through time? Back up to Hebrews 10 and you find he’s talking about Faith in Christ. Then, he gives you the heroes that exhibited their faith.

Now, what did the writer do with the evidence of Faith? Go to the next chapter!

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight,
and the sin which so easily ensnares us,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,
who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame,
and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
(Hebrews 12:1-2 NKJV)

Sometimes, no, most of the time the nuggets we need come as a result of the message shared. Do you hear Paul Harvey sharing “…the rest of the story…”? This is that “new in-between sound” I’m talking about listening for. You can find Spiritual Nuggets that will give you a brief rest in the moment of social madness.

Can you now look for that “new sound” in the social madness of this present world? It all depends on “what” you are listening for!