Do you know how to listen? I mean really listen? Let me show you how.

Do you know how to listen? I mean really listen? Like when you are in a conversation and you are fully present. Your mind isn’t wandering or you aren’t thinking about how you will respond? This is listening, real listening. Listening  for the sole purpose of hearing what the other person is saying. I’ll just tell you, I struggle with this. I even wrote at length about it in my book The Me Disease.

Last week, while on vacation, my husband, son and I were knee deep in conversation about our son’s future. What he might want to do when he grows up and what education might be necessary to help him in that career. My husband offered up some very wise advice. But I had my own ideas that I wanted to share. Rudely, I cut him off in mid-sentence so that I could get my “two cents” in. In that moment, I deflated the entire conversation and us all. It was pretty much over. No more talking, no more listening. No more anything. This was not my intention. But I wasn’t listening.

As I read my devotion the next morning, it referenced James 1:19 NIV, “take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…” God amazes me how He always gives me exactly what I need. The book of James has always been one of my favorites and talks a lot about listening. Obviously, I should spend a little more time studying this book of wisdom.

As I began to dig deeper into the verse, I often will read different versions of the same verse. The Amplified version reads, “Understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters. Let everyone be quick to hear [be a careful, thoughtful listener], slow to speak [a speaker of carefully chosen words and], slow to anger [patient, reflective, forgiving]…” I  definitely had not been a careful, thoughtful listener that day. I wondered how I could be quick to hear? Not quick to speak or interrupt as I had previously done. It is interesting to me that in this same verse about listening it also says we should be slow to anger [patient, reflective, forgiving]. These words remind me of another verse.

Strangely enough, I received an automated text message later in the day that read, 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient & kind. Love isn’t’ irritable. Love does not insist on its own way. Love bears all things, hopes all things.”  I would not think that love has anything to do with listening. I would be wrong. When we are patient and kind, when we are thoughtful in our listening and slow to speak and slow to anger, we are love. This is the number one read verse at weddings. There is a reason. We would be wise to learn from it.

I love how this verse reads in the Message;

No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never dies. 

I think God is trying to show me not only how to listen, but how to love.

So the next time you find yourself in a conversation with a friend, your mother, sister, brother or spouse, ask yourself, “Am I being a thoughtful and careful listener? Or am I in a hurry to respond so I will be heard? Am I being patient? Am I being love? Always lean toward love. Let us pray.

God of love, thank you for giving us two ears and one mouth. Teach us to listen more and speak less. Help us to be thoughtful in the things we say and do. Make us into a reflection of your love. In Jesus Name, Amen. -M  

• Leave me a comment below and let me know what kind of listener you are. You know I love to hear from you.
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