"We cannot breath out what we have not first breathed in"

“Listening is a spiritual act far more than acoustical function. Expensive and sophisticated amplification equipment does not improve listening, it only makes hearing possible. Mouths speak in order that ears may hear. The hearing that begins as a physical function becomes a spiritual response. When it does not, the problem is diagnosed as “heavy ears” (Isa. 6:10). Johannes Horst thinks that it was significant that in the saying about hewing off hand or foot or plucking out the eye (Mark 9:43-47) there is nothing about maiming the ear. “The ear is indispensable because of preaching.”

Marshall McLuhan made the arresting observation that nature has not equipped mankind with earlids. But we compensate for nature’s oversight by developing selective listening. We come to Christ to have our deafness cured.

Psalms are answering the God who has addressed us. God’s word precedes these words: the prayers don’t seek God, they respond to the God who seeks us.

Presumptuous prayer speaks to God without first listening.

Our core-being is expressed in language that follows the rhythms of our life, inhalation and exhalation. We cannot breathe out what we have not first breathed in. The breath that God breathes into us in daily Pentecosts is breathed out in our prayers. “

Eugene H. Peterson
“Answering God:
The Psalms as Tools of Prayer”