Being a parent is not easy. One of the most difficult things in the world has to be dealing with a child in the middle of a temper tantrum. When their fingers go in their ears and they start screaming, all reasoning stops. The only thing that might end the meltdown is swift parental discipline.
Now that smartphones are everywhere, there is plenty of video evidence that temper tantrums are not just for children. Video after video shows full grown adults acting just as bad or even worse than a toddler who was given the wrong sippy cup. As much as someone tries to reason with them, they just shove their fingers in their ears and ignore any attempt at intervention.
There is a childish tendency for us to refuse to accept the things we don’t want to hear. We like good news. We like to be told that we are doing a good job. And we like the things that make us feel good. If someone comes along and brings any kind of critique toward us, we have a natural drive to react by lashing out or ignoring it. We don’t want someone bursting our bubble.
This is why becoming a Christian can be hard to do. In order to obey the gospel, there are usually many things we have to give up or stop believing. In Matthew 16:24, Jesus says, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” This can be too difficult for some. Instead of following the Lord, they choose instead to stick their fingers in their ears and refuse to accept the truth.
This can be true for those who are already Christians too. We may have been a Christian for many years and have gotten comfortable with where we are spiritually. But if a brother or sister attacks our “pet sin,” we get offended and plug our ears from the truth. We might get so mad at a preacher that we leave our congregation and look for one that will agree with me. We fulfill Paul’s prophecy in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, when he said, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
Christians can’t be afraid of correction. We are not perfect. John says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Therefore, we need brothers and sisters who are willing to tell us when we are wrong. And we need to listen to them.
The Bible tells us what we need to change in our lives. We can close our ears to it and burn, or we can hear these words of correction, obey them, and live.