What's Your Listening Age?

This week, I have heard people talking about a trend. The online music service Spotify does an end-of-year “Wrapped,” offering a chance to analyze the music you listen to and let the algorithm guess your “listening age.” This is not your real age, but the age your music tastes suggest you are. Do you love 90s rock? You might be 43. Obsessed with the Beatles? You're maybe 68. Prefer Harry Styles or Olivia Rodrigo? That suggests Gen Z.

It’s a fun little gimmick, and it made me wonder about something similar. If there were a way to measure our spiritual listening age, or even our prophetic listening age, what would we learn about ourselves?

Advent is full of voices. Angels, shepherds, Mary, and Joseph all speak into this season. But the first voices we hear are the prophets: Isaiah, Zechariah, and John the Baptist come to us before anyone else. They begin Advent with a call that is both urgent and hopeful. They do not invite us simply to wait, but invite us instead to prepare our hearts for what God is doing.

Prophets can be hard to hear. Their words do not wrap us in comfort. They unsettle us and ask us to see the world as it truly is. In Scripture, prophetic voices speak right before something new begins. They call the people home from exile. They announce the coming of Christ. They prepare the way for renewal and change.

Most of us prefer voices that comfort us during the holidays. Tradition and familiarity feel easier than challenge. Yet if we listen only for what reassures us, we may miss what God is actually speaking into our lives today.

This Advent, consider your listening habits. Not only the music you enjoy, but the voices that shape your spiritual life. Do you listen only for comfort, or do you allow space for truth that invites growth? 

God is still speaking, Christ is still coming, and the Holy Spirit is still moving through creation.

How are you listening?