I have a habit of listening to the Bible on an app rather than just reading the words on a page. I like doing this because it’s how people in Jesus’ time would have learned about God—by hearing the stories out loud.
I was listening to Numbers 19:1. In that verse, the Lord tells Moses and Aaron to have the people of Israel bring them a “red heifer.” A heifer is just a young female cow. But as I was walking along, that is not what I heard.
My brain heard: “Bring Aaron a red pepper.”
I was so confused! The verses kept going, giving very specific instructions on what to do with this “pepper.” The Bible said the “pepper” should be taken outside the camp and slaughtered. It said the blood should be sprinkled and the whole thing—the skin and everything else—should be burned.
I stopped in my tracks. I thought to myself, “Wait a minute. I don’t remember ever hearing about a vegetable sacrifice in the Old Testament!” I started to argue with the app in my head. How do you slaughter a pepper? Why would you sprinkle pepper juice? I decided to hit the “back” button and listen again. I listened a second time, and I still heard “red pepper.” I was even more confused now. Finally, on the third try, I slowed down and really focused. That is when I realized the Lord was asking for a red heifer (a cow), not a snack from the garden!
It is pretty funny that this happened right after our sermon on Sunday. We have been talking about how we need to be “quick to listen.” In the book of James, it tells us that we should be fast to listen but slow to speak. King Solomon says the same thing in Proverbs: wise people are good listeners.
Even outside of the Bible, people like Stephen Covey have said we should “seek first to understand.” There is a big difference between just hearing a noise and actually listening to understand what is being said.
This mistake was a great reminder for me. In our world today, it is so easy to half-listen to people. We hear a few words, assume we know what they mean, and then we start planning what we want to say next. But if we don’t take the time to truly understand, we might miss the point entirely.
If we don’t learn to listen with our hearts, we might show up to our next “spiritual backyard BBQ” with a tiny red pepper when God was actually asking for something much bigger! This week, let’s all try to slow down. Let’s make sure we are really hearing the people around us—and the voice of God—so we don’t get our peppers and our heifers mixed up.