“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered.  “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.  Luke 1:38

A parent tells a teenager to be home by 10:30 at night, but the teen comes home at 11:30. The teen heard the instructions audibly, but he didn’t hear them in a way that affected his behavior. His ears received the instructions, but his heart didn’t.

How often do we do that same? The same disconnect between “hearing” and hearing can, and often does happen when we read God’s Word. It’s one thing to read God’s words in the Bible, but it’s another thing to obey them. 

God is sovereign and has every right to speak to us and expect an obedient response. Think of how challenging it must have been for the teenage Mary to both hear the angel Gabriel’s words from God and obey them. After all, what the angel said to her must have been confusing, if not confounding (Luke 1:26-38). Yet Mary’s response was a model of obedience: “Let it be to me according to your word.”

When you think back into the Old Testament and a very young Samuel is woken up in the middle of the night hearing his name being called. When he was finally told, by Eli, that it was the Lord calling, Scripture tells us:

            The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”

            Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”   1 Samuel 3:10

As we read God’s words daily, let’s make sure we are hearing with our heart as well as with our mind. And let obedience be our response.

The difficulty we modern Christians face is not misunderstanding the Bible, but persuading our untamed hearts to accept its plain instructions. – A. W. Tozer