How well do you listen? In Luke 8:18, Jesus gives the instruction to those around him to “consider carefully how you listen.” I don’t know about you, but I typically give about as much attention to how I listen as to how I taste. I don’t. I just do it. But maybe that’s not good enough.
A few years ago I began to wonder if my husband was losing his hearing. I instructed him at his next doctor’s visit to discuss it with his physician. When he came home, he was quick to assure me that his hearing was perfect. His problem was with his listening. The doctor had no suggestions for my husband, but recommended that he instruct me to be sure that I didn’t try to talk to him from another room and know that it was essential that I had his full attention (aka look him in the eyes) if I was to expect to be heard.
I remember during my counseling training the professors seemed to go on and on about teaching us how to listen. I found it very challenging to not “think ahead” of what the person was telling me. I’m a solver and I had to figure out how to turn off that mental function and just listen.
It’s easy for me to identify poor listening in others. I see it in weary parents who somehow have been able to turn off the incessant whining and pleading of their little children. I see it in the employee who just keeps nodding yes to their boss’ instructions. I see it in the spouse who long prior tuned out the story their mate was telling them. I don’t want to see it in myself.
The thing that really concerns me, right now, is to honestly evaluate how I listen…or don’t. And even more importantly, how do I listen to God. I have been told I am a pretty good listener. I like for people to feel heard. I know how important that is. I found a quote that really describes it for me: “Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to it creates us, makes us unfold, and expand.” (Sue Patton Thoele) I want to be a part of that process for people. I mean, think about. How have you felt when you have really, really felt heard? I love to create a space where that can happen.
So, if I’m so good at that with other people, why do I feel like I should get a sub-par score for listening to God? I’m sitting here pondering this thought very early in the morning. As I am, I look out my big front picture window at all the trees in my front yard and there isn’t a leaf moving. I have four very large maples standing perfectly still. I am in awe because I don’t do still—at least not very well, and rarely by choice.
The scene has changed. I’m at work now. A continental breakfast is being provided for the youth who are here for convention. They talk, saying words that no one seems to be listening. They ask questions, but don’t wait for answers. It was all I could do not to snicker at them, until I realized their behavior is not so far from my own. I tip my hat at God, occasionally noticing His presence. I ask Him to act or move, but rarely wait to see what part He may have for me to play. I babble on and on, not realizing how empty my thoughts and words are—just sound filling up space.
I know better. In the very first church I pastored, there was a woman whose life was the embodiment of E.F. Hutton’s slogan: When E.F. Hutton speaks, people listen. When Lois spoke, people listened. Lois had cancer in her sinus cavity and much of those inner workings had been removed. She could speak, but it was labored and sometimes difficult to understand. So when she did say something, it was because she had something to say and people listened. My pastor put it this way in a recent sermon: just because you could say something doesn’t mean you have to.
But it isn’t enough to just not talk. Earlier this morning, when I was staring out the window at the trees, I realized as I stilled myself long enough to focus, that there was movement in the tree and leaves. It was very subtle and slight, but I never would have seen it if I hadn’t taken the time to focus. We tend to think of focus as only visual. We can focus our hearing, too, like my husband whose hearing worked well if was listening. We have to be still and intentional if we want to hear others, and if we want to hear what God wants to say to us.
So, what have you heard lately?
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