The other day, my friend, Jake, got a pretty bad infection in his ear. It was his 16th birthday and he was in a lot of pain from the swelling, so off the ER they went to see what was up. Turns out it was just an infection because of water in the ear and not anything serious, and ear medicine and an earwick would do the trick. A few days later he is feeling quite a bit better. I was praying for him and it got me to thinking about the ears and how significant of a role they play in our life. The first verse that came to mind were the words of Jesus in Matthew 13:9, “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” Because, he says in verse 12, “those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge.” Jesus went on to say that so many people have closed their eyes and ears and thus, have no understanding, so their hearts are hard and won’t allow healing. But, he said, you are listening right now and “blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it.”
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” — Epictetus, Greek philosopher
Interesting facts about the ear. The insides of your ear are small enough to be a spy microphone!
- Your ear drum is less than 0.7 inches (17.5 mm) in diameter. It moves less than a billionth of an inch when hearing.
- At birth, the human ear can hear sounds as low as 20 Hertz (lower than the lowest note on a piano) and as high as 20,000.
- Your ear never stops working, even when you’re asleep. The ear continues to hear sounds, but your brain simply shuts them out. Maybe that’s why you sometimes suddenly wake up, positive you heard something, but with no idea what it was.
- You get a new ear canal every year! The ear canal skin is constantly growing outward at a rate of 1.3 inches every year. If it didn’t fall off, you’d have a two foot string hanging out of your ear by the time you were 20!
- The three bones in your ear are the smallest bones in your body, and all three could fit together on a penny.
- The whole area of the middle ear is no bigger than an M&M.
- The smallest muscle in the body is the stapedius, located in the middle ear. It is only 1/20th of an inch long and controls the smallest bone in the body, the stapes or stirrup bone. While the stirrup is twice the size of the muscle, it’s still only about 1/10th of an inch long.
- Music is not bad for your ears. It’s only very loud music that’s a problem. Listening to loud music is not only a problem in pubs and clubs, but also on earphones. By the way, listening to earphones for just one hour will increase the bacteria in your ear up to 700 times.
- The sound of the roaring ocean you hear when putting a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but the sound of your blood surging through the veins in your ear.
- Your ears play a big part in helping you keep your balance. There are three serial canals next to the cochlea in the ear. They work like gyroscopes to keep us balanced. They give you information on where you are in space. If you think that’s not so important, wait and see how a really bad ear infection can affect your sense of balance.
So the ear is a pretty amazing part of our body – to be able to hear and process all the sounds simultaneously is really pretty astounding, and at the same time realize that our sense of balance is significantly impacted by our ears. And throughout the Bible, we see many scriptures that talk about our hearing. Having the privilege of hearing is such a blessing — think of the richness we enjoy in being able to listen to music, hear the sound of the morning birds singing or the spring frogs chirping in the late evening hours, hear the sound of the surf washing in and out, or the sweet sound of your mother’s first “I love you.” All our body parts are integral to unity, as Paul so plainly puts it in I Corinthians 12:14-22, “Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything? But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary.”
Which brings me to the whole point that I was thinking about… Are my ears infected? What do I put into my ears that cause infection? Do I fill them with the sounds of negativity? Do I fill them with lyrics that betray the truth of Jesus Christ and a life of holiness? Do I allow profanity to frequent them? As I type this, I am sitting at the front desk of the IHOP and I can hear the sounds of a team that is praising God – they are singing the attributes of God – wonderful, beautiful, matchless in every way, indescribable… What a privilege I have to hear that daily. Many are surrounded by sounds that are less than pleasant. Many hear the sounds of arguing, gossip, backbiting, strife, anger and even hatred. Their ears are so infected by such sounds that cause them pain. The TV blares on and on, filling the ears with sound.
Truth is, what most of us need is a good ear cleaning. Like Jake, who needed ear drops and and earwick (a strip of gauze inserted into the external ear canal so that medicated drops applied to the outside pass along it and into the canal) to get rid of the infection and ultimately, the intense pain, so it is the same for us. We need the true medicine of the Word of God to wash our ears clean with healing truth. I thought of Elijah, hiding in a cave, trying to hear from the Lord — the sound of thunder and rain crashing all around him — no doubt his ears painfully ringing from the intensity of it all. Yet, at the end, the quiet voice of the Lord came in the silence. I think that’s really what most people truly long for. To hear a simple, quiet Truth after the clash and clamor of life in our ears. But we can’t hear it if we never stop and shut down the sound. Psalm 37:7 says, “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.”
So that’s the deal… turn off the noise. Drive in silence. Rest your ears for a bit. And when you turn it back on, listen to things that will encourage you, cause you joy. If you hear life, joy, hope, love, and encouragement, chances are, you are going to start speaking it with your mouth and living it with your actions.
In the last five-six years my tastes and environment have completely changed. What once was ok just doesn’t have the ‘flavor’ I desire any more. Oddly enough now when I am in stores and they are playing music ALL.THE.TIME that is a throw back to my former preferences, I can barely stand it. It just sounds like noise to me and it is very distracting. I enjoy listening to music about God and worshiping Him as it helps me focus on Him, listening for Him. It is funny though, I try to take it in stride because sometimes He will speak to me using the noisy chaos in the midst of it all.