Can You Hear Me?
Why is it that God gave us two ears and one mouth?
Not only do we not listen, but evidently we are blind as well! LOL. It is like, God said, “Here’s your sign!” LOL.
Let’s ponder on that just a moment.
The older I get the more I see the importance of being a good listener. People just want to be listened to, not just heard.
James 1:19 warns us to be swift to hear, slow to speak. It takes some training to become an active listener. Whether we are listening to God or to another person:
It reflects a love and a respect.
It says, “I care about what you have to say.”
It shows humility and it strengthens relationships.
Wow, something so easy to do and yet so hard to master.
Do you remember or have heard about a columnist named, Erma Bombeck? She was popular about 40 years ago! She made a profound comment then that I think is so very prevalent in our society today.
She said, (quote), “that in a society of super sophisticated communication, we often suffer from a shortage of listeners,” (end of quote). Wowzers!
If she felt that way back then, I would be interested to hear her perspective today.
We are hearing, we are speaking, but are we listening? Are we under a communication overload? So much that we have stopped listening? I wonder?
I think God is asking the same question. Are you really listening to me?
We must be ready to listen to God. We must be in a position to listen to him and to others.
We cannot hear God or another person for that matter if we do all the talking or if our minds are distracted by other things. We live in a world full of distractions. There is a sense of focus that comes in to play. It takes an effort on our part.
I believe, we live in a state of busyness that has trained us to not be good listeners. We don’t make time to practice being a good listener. We are ingrained to be in a hurry.
Some of my favorite memories are those in which my family sat on my grandparents’s front porch and listened to them tell stories about my mother and her siblings when they were young or how my grandfather worked hard to make a living to care for the family. I could listen for hours! I wanted to hear what they had to say. We have to want to hear what is being said.
Listening is an action word. In this verse God bends down to listen. How beautiful!………
Psalm 116:2-4 (NLT) Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath!
I can envision God looking me in the eye and waiting patiently for me to share my thoughts with him. He intently hears my pain. Yes, when we listen intently, we can hear pain in a person.
He hears my burdens. Sometimes, people just want to be able to share their emotions and all is needed is an ear. We don’t necessarily have to have an answer for them. People just want to be listened too.
And, we in return should listen patiently for God to respond to our prayer so that we might know his perfect will for us. Listening takes time and patience. We must make an effort to become a good listener.
I tell my children in Sunday School that it is impossible to listen and speak at the same time. Sometimes, I will catch them off guard and call on someone who is talking while I am teaching, just to keep us all humble and to prove my point. (Ofcourse, they will not be able to answer the question I ask). It will buy me a few minutes of uninterrupted teaching time. LOL
Jesus himself begins to teach a crowd the meaning of what defiles a person in Mark 7:14 by beginning with, “Listen to me, everyone and understand this.” Listening is imperative to understanding people, situations, and relationships. We must be tuned into the speaker in order to fully understand what is being spoken.
Jesus says in this passage, that what comes out of a person can defile him. I don’t want to be found guilty of causing a person to feel belittled or less by my inability to be a good listener when they needed me to be one.
That would not be a good testament of who we are in Christ…..He is the greatest listener of All!
If we are to model our Father, Jesus Christ, Listening is one of his greatest gifts! Help us Oh Lord, that we might be the sounding board for a lost world.
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said-Peter Drucker