The prince of darkness has hijacked today’s information revolution to scroll his poison across the cinema of society and pierce the peace of our heart.
Listening is being sent to endangered species list of life by our ability to say so much in so many ways.
We increasingly listen with the presumption that we know what others are thinking and what they “plan to say.”
We compound that mistake by putting together our own words even as they speak. We are merely waiting impatiently for our chance to speak.
This is a form of arrogance that, at minimum, diminishes and rejects the person speaking. And if we cannot listen to others, how soon will it be before we are not listening to God either?
Learning to listen requires discipline, effort, and intentionality. I use the following approaches to improve my listening:
- Relax on the outside but focus intently on listening inside.
- Ask open-ended, engaging questions that softly encourage the other person to drill below the surface.
- Listen with an eye of giving affirmation and not giving “answers.”
- Turn my listening from passive with me always in the background to active with them in the foreground.
- Avoid “editing” what I hear with my own thoughts and perspective.
HOW ABOUT YOU?
Try taking this test today: HEARING VS LISTENING?
“Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” James 1:19
