Dissonance

“’Israel cries out to me, 'Our God, we acknowledge you!' But Israel has rejected what is good;” – Hosea 8:2-3

Dissonance. It’s a word describing two opposing or clashing things happing concurrently. In music, a dissonant chord would be like hitting a black key right next to a white key on the piano. It makes you wince. Something is not right. The two notes don’t go together.

In this passage, Israel is living a dissonant lifestyle. Throughout the book of Hosea, God is describing the depths of evil to which His people have plunged. The funny thing is, they don’ see it! They cry out to God, “we acknowledge you”, yet at the same time they reject what is good. Do you see the problem? They say one thing but do another. That’s dissonance.

This hits way too close to home with me. Too often I disconnect knowing the right thing to do and actually doing it. I am content to read my Bible and make some mental notes about the right way to live and then go about my day and forget to put it into practice. I claim to love Jesus yet yell at my kids. I claim to have faith in God, yet refuse to step out of my comfort zone and put myself in a situation in which I have to actually trust Him. I claim that God’s kingdom is the only thing that’s valuable yet rarely open my mouth to tell anybody about it. Too often, I live in dissonance.

Jesus told a story in Luke 6 about the foolish man and the wise man. The fool built his house on sand while the wise one took the time to dig deep and anchor his house on bedrock. Can you guess which house stood firm when a raging storm and flash flood arose? The houses represent our lives. We all build our lives upon something. When explaining the story, Jesus said that both foolish people and wise people hear God’s word, the difference is that wise people actually take time to put God’s word into practice. The sad thing is that Jesus tells us many are going to hear His words, yet perish because they didn’t actually do them. They “fool”ed themselves into thinking that since they heard it, they got it.

What makes all the difference is action and time. It’s takes time to put God’s word into action. It takes more than intention, it takes a gameplan. We need more than just a list of what to do, we need to know how we are going to do it. What practical steps are we going to take today to put God’s word into practice. Then do it. Start small. A lot of small things often add up to bigger things. Yes, it’s going to take time, but according to Jesus, that effort is what separates the wise from the foolish.

So let’s not just be hearers of the word, but doers. Make sure that God’s word is sinking down deep into our hearts and bearing fruit in our lives. Let’s stop living dissonant lives where what we preach is different than what we practice. Instead of dissonance, let’s try harmony.