Written by Brian Morykon, a contemporary writer.
To listen is to love. To be heard and understood is to experience love. When you know you won’t be interrupted, questioned, or judged, you speak differently. When someone’s tuned in, you turn up your heart’s transmission signal. Most listeners allocate half their attention to their own thoughts and responses. When someone gives you and your words full attention—total presence—the air is charged with eternity. Surely God is in this place. Someone listens to me this way for an hour each Wednesday. Honestly, it’s hard to take. I want to turn the tables and ask questions, but that’s not what we’re there for. So I talk till the words name something in my soul that hasn’t been named before—or maybe it has, and I’ve forgotten and need to name it again. I talk and pause and talk again and notice my eyes are wet. I look up to find a face accepting me, the face of Christ in my friend. And my tears are like living water to some parched part of my heart that I’d long given up on as dead. Our session ends and it occurs to me that I’m no longer in the irritable rush I was in an hour ago. We don’t understand the power of listening or its centrality to spiritual growth. We underestimate the immense treasures we can give and receive through listening—to each other, to God, and to our own hearts. Thank God listening is learnable. There are spaces we can practice—formal spaces with others like listening groups and cohort programs (some of these are listed below) and informal spaces like a prayer chair or dinner table. I’m quite sure Jesus would be delighted to teach us how to listen if we ask.
If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame [Proverbs 18:13]
Pathways Press.com 