May 8, 2025
“The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.” – Proverbs 12:15
I have never been the best listener. I mean I wear hearing aids and have consistently had audiologist appointments for the past decade, so I feel that I am certifiably a bad listener. My husband struggles with this because he wants desperately for me to hear him most days, and yet, even when I have those hearing aids stationed tightly inside my ears, I will still occasionally struggle.
This season we are in, I have realized that although yes, I have degenerative hearing loss, I also think maybe it has some selective tendencies as I watch both of my daughters deliberately choose to not hear commands or requests, but if we are whispering at the other end of the house about a surprise or something fun to do later on that day, oh boy will their supersonic hearing be turned up to 100!
When I think of this verse from the book of Proverbs, I giggle because it makes me think of my daughters and their stubborn nature. They believe they are more right than anyone else on earth. I also think of myself and my husband. We think we are THE MOST right. We do not see obvious errors that we are making daily, not just in parenting, but in every other aspect of our lives. That is until the other night when we got the chance to speak to a dear friends Dad, an extremely successful attorney in Oklahoma City and as he beguiled us with his stories and tales of success, he also talked to us about the importance of loyalty, passion, and being certain in believing in yourself. It sounds corny, but I promise, coming from this man it felt like the truth. It felt like we were hearing these things for the first time: that it’s okay that we don’t have a lot of money right now because our faith is more precious than gold; to choose our daughters every time and see how blessings will flow from those choices.
The advice came when we least expected it, but it was exactly what we needed to hear when we needed to hear it. What we take from this is that God will find you. He will find you even in the rafters at a OKC Thunder play-off game. He will find you even if you left your hearing aids at home and are catching every other word. He will find you.
Kelsey Paul, Downtown LifeLight Worship Leader
