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Have you ever felt truly heard by someone else? Perhaps you shared with a friend about a struggle in your life, and rather than giving you a list of things to do to make your life better, your friend listened. You left that conversation feeling cared for, encouraged, known.
Proverbs teaches us to refrain from too much speech (Prov. 10:19; 17:27; 29:20). James tells us to “be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19). In our sin nature, we are poor listeners. We want conversations to focus on us; we want the limelight. Even worse, we fail to listen to the Word of God. The prophet sums up our condition, calling us “foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not” (Jer. 5:21).
Despite having ears that don’t hear, we have a God who listens to us. Our covenant-keeping God remembers His promises to His people and listens when they call out to Him (Ex. 2:24). He hears our cries for help (Ps. 18:6). God not only hears; He stepped into history and did something about it. He sent Jesus to live in this fallen world among a people who “may indeed hear but not understand” (Mark 4:12). In His coming, “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them” (Matt. 11:4–5). He listened to and responded to the needs of His people. He heard deep into their hearts, going deeper than the layers of denial and shame (John 4:17–18). He listened to and obeyed the word of His Father. Our Savior then died the death we deserved. Through faith in who Christ is and what He has done, we are given ears to hear and understand. We can listen to, love, and obey God. And we can now listen to and love one another.
To listen like Jesus, we need a holy curiosity. We listen so that we might understand. To do so, we engage our entire bodies in the act of listening: our eyes are fixed on our friend; we nod our head; we lean forward to show interest; we make appropriate facial expressions in response to what is said. We ask questions for clarification because we want to learn more about what our friend is thinking or feeling. We don’t interrupt or construct our response while our friend talks. We then summarize what was said to show that we did indeed listen.
As we listen to one another, we do what Paul exhorts: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3), and “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thess. 5:11).
To listen to one another is a great gift. It encourages the heart. It shows that our friends are important, valued, and loved. When we listen, we reflect the One who always listens to us.