Learning to Listen (part 2)

Listening is a lost art these days. We don’t listen well, and we aren’t used to being listened to. Most of our words simply fall to the ground.

I have a friend who, when he goes to noisy parties and people ask how he’s doing, on occasion has replied quietly, “My business went belly-up this week, the bank foreclosed on my house, my wife left me, and I have terminal cancer.” “Wonderful!” one man murmured, as he pumped my friend’s hand and moved on. I keep wondering if I’ve done the same thing to others in other ways.

Here are some things I’m learning about listening:

• When I’m thinking about an answer while others are talking—I’m not listening.
• When I give unsolicited advice—I’m not listening.
• When I suggest they shouldn’t feel the way they do—I’m not listening.
• When I apply a quick fix to their problem—I’m not listening.
• When I fail to acknowledge their feelings—I’m not listening.
• When I fidget, glance at my watch, and appear to be rushed—I’m not listening.
• When I fail to maintain eye contact—I’m not listening.
• When I don’t ask follow-up questions—I’m not listening.
• When I top their story with a bigger, better story of my own—I’m not listening.
• When they share a difficult experience and I counter with one of my own—I’m not listening.

Listening is hard work and most of us are unwilling to put in the time, and time is required. Listening means setting aside our own timetable and tendency to hurry on to our next destination. It means settling into a relaxed, unhurried, leisurely pace. “Only in the ambience of leisure,” Eugene Peterson wrote, “do persons know they are listened to with absolute seriousness, treated with dignity and importance.”

In leisure we regard one another’s interests as more important than ours (Philippians 2:3). In leisure we say, “You are more significant than anything I have to do right now. You are the only one who counts, the one for whom I am willing to forget my other obligations, appointments, and meetings. I have time for you.” In leisure we listen long enough to hear the other person’s true heart, so that if we do speak, we speak with gentle wisdom.

A leisurely pace, a listening ear, a loving heart—these are the qualities of a good conversationalist. Would that you and I, by God’s grace, will acquire them.

A final caveat: Even if you listen well, most folks won’t make that effort in return. We’ve all had the experience of leaving a long conversation aware that we know a great deal about the other person but they know almost nothing about us. “Be patient,” Winnie the Pooh says. “If people don’t listen, it may be that they have a small piece of fluff in their ear.”

Taken from Seeing God, © 2006 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566, Grand Rapids MI 4950l. All rights reserved.