Most often, when I think about the “surgery” God has done through the dynamics of salvation, I think about what God’s done to the heart. Through Ezekiel, we’re told that, through the regenerating work of salvation, God performs a heart transplant . . . that He replaces the old heart with a new heart . . . that He removes the heart of stone and upgrades it with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26-27). The new heart is a heart that can respond to the things of God . . . a heart attuned to the sound of His voice.

But reading in Psalm 40, I discover that in order for the heart to respond . . . in order for it to pick up on the Spirit’s voice . . . that there’s another “procedure” required . . .

In sacrifice and offering You have not delighted,
       but You have given me an open ear.

(Psalm 40:6 ESV)

When Jesus was preaching and teaching, often He would conclude with “He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.” In Revelation 2 and 3, when the Lord of the Church, through John, writes His letters to His people, He concludes each of them with, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” So where did the ear to hear come from?

But You have given me an open ear.

Apparently, the word for “open” literally means to dig, or to bore, or to excavate. It has the idea of digging out a well. So, just as we might say, “God has given me a new heart” . . . we could also say that He has dug out my ears.

A divine Q-Tip (or maybe in my case a holy auger, as it were) has been applied to remove that which would hinder us from hearing His voice. Through His Spirit, He has tuned us into His frequency, that we might receive His Word and that, receiving it, it might find its way to new hearts ready to respond to that Word.

What a mistake it would be for me to take any credit for hearing or listening to God. What folly to think that somehow because I was spiritually attuned that I thus became a candidate for His grace and mercy. No, He dug out my ears. He bore through my spiritual deafness. He has given me an open ear.

I desire to do Your will, O my God;
       Your law is within my heart.

(Psalm 40:8 ESV)

The people of God desire to the will of God because He has placed the law of God within new hearts. And the law of God makes it’s way to the heart for God through ears opened by the grace of God.

O’, praise God for ears to hear!

Nothing of my doing . . . but You have given me an open ear.

Speak, LORD, for Your servant hears.

(1Samuel 3:9 ESV)

By Your grace . . . for Your glory . . .