Listen First…Answer if Necessary

When I think back over my life, I can remember that the moments where my personhood felt the most violated and my sense of justice most offended were in moments where those I most wanted to hear what I was trying to say would not listen and even shouted me down with their repetitive script of senselessness. Perhaps you have experienced something similar. In fact, it is likely that those whose ideas, words, and deeds are most offensive to us have experienced it too. So why do we think that we can fix people’s problems without taking the time to listen to their stories and try to understand where they are coming from? Even Job’s idiot comforters had the cultural sensitivity to sit in silence with Job for seven days and seven nights before playing their own scratched records.  

People who take a position of power may be able to shout down another’s position…but there is no reconciliation taking place when they do that. In listening, we not only open the door to our being heard, but we might in fact learn something that we were missing. Job’s friends learned that their theology was flawed and that their only hope for survival was to have Job “the Sinner” pray for them. I really don’t want to become so rigid in my view of theology that I snap and break when the wind of the Spirit blows. I want to remain teachable so that the Lord can continually be separating the chaff from the grain in my life. If I don't take the time to listen to others I find that I also don't really listen to God.

In the Bible, the Book of Proverbs says a lot about listening and being teachable. Here is a small sample of what it says…

• “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” (12:15)
• “Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.” (15:32)
• “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” (18:1-2)
• “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.” (18:13)
• “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear.” (25:11-12)
• “If a ruler listens to falsehood, all his officials will be wicked.” (29:12)

Later in the history of Israel, the prophet Jeremiah (25:3-5) calls out his fellow Jews for failing to listen to the prophets and not responding to their message.

“For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, to this day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets,  saying, ‘Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers from of old and forever.

In the New Testament, this emphasis on listening continues as Jesus used some form of the phrase “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” at least twelve times in the gospels. And his brother James later wrote this amazing advice regarding our hearing God’s voice and by extension those with whom we live, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”(James 1:19-20)

I wonder how much damage has been done to the church by our not really listening to the stories of those to whom we have been sent.  

I wonder how much healing we have missed out on because we didn't listen deeply to God (through Word and Spirit) on a personal and corporate level. 

A little over 50 years ago the Pacific Northwest was ravaged by the Columbus Day storm that roared up from the south with hurricane-force winds. In the Portland area, our normally moderate wind patterns are from either the east out of the Columbia Gorge or from the coast to the west or northwest. We are accustomed to these winds and they rarely cause much damage. The storms that cause the most damage only come rarely and their winds are usually from the south. Even the trees are unprepared and whole forests can be uprooted as they were in 1962! So I have to ask, when the move of God comes from a quarter we don't expect how do we respond? When God speaks through a person we might by habit tend to marginalize, how well do we listen? Remember that the first step to building our lives and churches on solid ground is to hear Jesus' words and do them! (Matthew 7:24-27).

In conclusion, let me share two things I have learned about listening as cultural intelligence. Firstly. I have learned that I need to listen to others before I answer them, before I go into fix-it mode. Over the years I have sat with many people who came for counsel, but I never really needed to say anything to them about what the answer to their situation was. As I listened to them, the Lord spoke to them just what they needed to hear. In listening long before answering, who knows, it might just fix us too! Secondly, I need to always listen to the Lord no matter what the source and no matter what changes he may want to bring. If we don’t bend before the Holy Spirit/Wind when he blows, we will break. We can either humble ourselves or be humbled. I prefer the former. Culture changes, methodology changes, God does not change.

Many years ago I wrote several poems with the wind as a motif. The following poem is one of them and is perhaps even more applicable today than it was then.

         A Supernatural Wind

A great, vehement, tempestuous, boisterous wind,

A wind too strong

For us,

Will come

Testing, building, forcing trust,

Sifting and purifying.

Will we be as wheat revealed,

On God’s threshing floor,

Or chaff removed like so much whirling dust?

Will we even now,

Before the Supernatural Wind,

Bend,

In willing worship, teachable obedience, or

Break,

In stubborn resistance, denial?

                                                               © 1991 Greg K. Dueker

Revelation may be uncomfortably humbling, but breaking and removal are far worse.

 

 

Question: So how (i.e., In what ways) do you see listening as being mutually beneficial in your context as a follower of Christ?