Mark 4:21-25: in context

Jesus gives a cluster of short sayings about hearing and light. A lamp, he says, is not brought to be put under a basket or a bed, but on a stand; and nothing is hidden except to be revealed, nothing secret except to come to light. Then he turns to how we hear: take heed what you hear; with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and more will be given. For whoever has, more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away.

The saying to sit with is the warning about hearing: take heed what you hear; with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Jesus is teaching that hearing is not a passive thing, that what we do with what we hear determines what we receive. To the one who takes God's word seriously, receives it, acts on it, more understanding is given; to the one who hears carelessly and does nothing with it, even what they had slips away. The measure we bring to our hearing, the attention, the openness, the readiness to obey, is the measure of what we will get from it. This runs against a common assumption that we are simply passive recipients, that understanding either comes to us or it does not, apart from any effort of ours. Jesus says otherwise: how we hear matters, and there is a kind of spiritual economy in which use brings increase and neglect brings loss. The one who acts on the little they have understood is given more; the one who lets what they hear pass through them, unheeded and unused, finds that even that fades. It is a call to active, attentive, responsive hearing. The word we take seriously and put into practice grows in us; the word we hear idly and set aside is soon gone. Take heed how you hear, because your hearing itself sets the measure of what you will be given.

Do I take heed how I hear God's word, receiving it attentively and acting on it, so that more is given, or do I hear carelessly and leave it unused, risking the loss of even what I once understood?