A FLOWER BED INSIDE A BLACKSMITH’S SHOP

The Bible has lots to say about EARS—those two strange looking appendages on the side of your head that never see each other. Aren’t you glad that in creation God didn’t decrease by one and place only one ear in the middle of your forehead, single, like one nose and one mouth. What if he had placed them on the top of our heads and made them tall and furry and pointed and able to rotate directionally? Or made the outside flap as big as an elephant’s?

Have we ever solved the problem of whether a tree falling in a forest makes a sound or not, if there are no ears to hear it?

Consider how intricately God designed the physical ear. Do you think He had to draw a blueprint first and try out a prototype to see if it would pick up the right sound waves—and at the same time create the sound waves with their various frequencies? Or did He just speak the word: “LET THERE BE EAR” –and there was an ear—perfect and entirely functioning? And the first voice Adam heard was God’s voice!

Although Jesus’ reference to ears had primarily a spiritual connotation pertaining to attentive listening, God’s design of our physical ear is absolutely a stroke of genius—of course, one would expect that of the Original Creator. Could it have simply evolved by accident? What a fable! The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 103, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me—bless His holy name!” All that is within me—oh, the marvels of the inner ear that we take so much for granted! The following is a medically and picturesquely accurate description of our marvelous hearing mechanism.

“The inner ear is a flower bed inside a blacksmith’s shop. Way inside and down below the outer auditory canal, past the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup, sprout the hair cells of the cochlea. They are planted in tidy rows along the basilar membrane like geraniums in a window box. (Jesus said that the hairs of our head are numbered—doubtless these ear hair cells are exactly numbered too so that we can hear!) As the hammer and anvil pound sound waves into shape, the stirrup taps out the beat on the basilar membrane. That in turn sets the hair cells swaying like a breeze through a cornfield. Each of the hair cells’ undulations fires electrical signals to the brain, where we discern the cause of the commotion. Is it a cymbal crash? Or the soft exhalation of a child’s breath? Other senses may rest, but the ear never sleeps. It is insomniac, always alert to the slightest pulses, awake to the faintest tremors. It is the last of our senses to fade when we are called from this life.”

LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE EAR! And let’s heed Jesus’ admonition, “He who has ears, let him hear.” (Mark 8:18) Most of us do have ears that hear. However, are they tuned to God’s frequency or channel so that He can say of us, “My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me.” (John 10:3) God promised that His ears are open to our prayer. (1 Peter 3:12) and if we hear His voice and open the door of our hearts, He will come in and intimately share a meal with us. (Rev. 3:20)

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