And the Lord said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.” (1 Sam. 3:11)
CHANCES ARE YOU’VE HEARD the old saying, “If you ears are burning, it’s a sign someone is talking about you.” Others say, “If your ears are itching, someone is talking about you.”
Still others ascribe good things to the right ear and bad to the left ear. If your left ear is itching or burning, someone is speaking evil of you, they say. But if the right ear is burning or itching, it’s a sign someone is speaking well of you.
Pliny, the ancient Roman philosopher, is supposedly the first to talk about itching ears in this way. His writings contain many other superstitions, none of which are true. Yet the Lord’s words to Samuel about tingling ears predates Pliny by at least one thousand years.
Regardless of who said it first, we’re intrigued by news that will make the ears tingle. We know what it means: news that gets our immediate attention. It may be good news or bad news, but if it’s out of the ordinary it will get our hearts racing and our tongues wagging. We have to tell someone about it.
The speaker at one of my commencement ceremonies confessed he had told more people about a headache remedy that worked for him than he had recently told about Jesus. Ouch! It’s one thing to hear tingling news. It’s another to tell the best news ever!
Tell someone the good news today.
Ron McClung lives in Fishers, Indiana, with his wife Carol. He has written his weekly column, Positive Perspective, for more than twenty-nine years.
© 2018 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission.
