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The Grace of Listening

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 “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.”

James 1:19-20

Most of us get this one wrong. We habitually rattle off whatever comes to mind and often don’t bother to listen. We already know we’re right; we just need to convince the other guy. Of course, the other guy is usually thinking the same thing.

Perhaps you recognize this scenario.

You’re having a discussion or a disagreement, and you’ve paused long enough to give your opponent a moment to respond to your enlightening wisdom. He’s now speaking, but you’re not listening. You’re far too busy contemplating your next argument. Before he’s able to put the period on his sentence, you let loose again, hoping to seal the deal.

Discussions like that usually don’t resolve anything. You end up right where you began. Except now the stubborn refusal to agree has left both sides fuming.

Have you ever been caught in that destructive cycle? I have. It’s one of the pitfalls of having a perfectionist personality. Those of us chained to that particular stronghold can be driven by a compulsive need to prove ourselves right. So we try.

Unfortunately, our behavior has consequences. Galatians 6:7 teaches,

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

Apparently, so does a woman. On a number of occasions when I’ve tried to talk to my sons about something they don’t really agree with, I’ve realized they’re not tuning in. Instead of listening, they’re working on their own arguments. They’ve already made up their minds. Their retort to my advice offers the proof. Instead of hearing my point, they just justify theirs. Our chains have a way of winding themselves around the next generation.

Here’s the good news: there is One who sets captives free!

In Christ we’ve been given the power to live differently. We don’t need to keep repeating our same damaging patterns. Consider some of His promises.

  • Romans 8:37  . . . in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
  • Philippians 4:13  I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
  • 1 Corinthians 2:16  . . . But we have the mind of Christ.

God has given us so much more than we realize or utilize! We have been given the very mind of our Lord and Savior. He is always patient, always kind, always loving, always forgiving. What’s more, He’s a great listener.

You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry.

Psalm 10:17

Jesus desires to demonstrate His character through us. What if we allowed Him to teach us to listen like He does? It starts with learning to listen to Him.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret. Our problem isn’t actually that we don’t know how to listen; our problem is that we consistently listen to the wrong voice. We’re so tuned in to the cries of our own selfish desires that we often refuse to consider anything else.

We must learn to quiet ourselves and listen for the voice of our Shepherd. His motives are always to heal, to encourage, to restore. Rather than simply rattling off our own personal thoughts, we need to seek His.

When we take a moment to listen for His guidance, He will stir us toward restoration. He will convict us of our own selfish motives and reveal our deceptions. He will lead us on the path of encouragement when we listen for His words instead of spouting our own.

And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times. Psalm 12:6

When we speak with His words, we don’t ever have to worry that we’ll say the wrong thing. His words create life where it didn’t exist.

And as we learn to let Jesus guide us through our difficult conversations, we will notice something else. We become changed. His presence reveals the fleshly attitudes of our hearts and sifts them. As a result, we become more like Him. We will naturally become better listeners and find ourselves compassionately moved to hear and consider the needs of others.

I’m so thankful that Jesus releases chains. He’s changed my heart, and I’ve learned to respond to people differently. Sometimes. But when I stumble, He’s always there to pick me back up and direct me toward forgiveness. Healing follows.

His love is better than life.

The Way of Death

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“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” Proverbs 14:12

Logic. It’s one of our worst enemies—at least it’s one of mine. I’ve always been a person who needs to understand things. It helped me in school and produced straight A’s on my report cards, but it often works against me when I need to trust. My analytical mind sets to work and robs me of peace.

Can you relate? Have you ever tossed and turned in the night working through all angles of a scenario, looking for that light bulb moment when it all becomes clear? If we can just figure it out, we can fix it, or at least we’ll be able to rest.

That might be true in the world, but that doesn’t apply to God’s agenda. Isaiah 55:9 explains why.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

God’s thoughts and ways are beyond our ability to understand. If we spend our time trying to, we’ll end up frustrated. There’s only so high our thoughts can ascend. Once we reach that plateau, we’re left with trusting the unseen as our only recourse, and most of us aren’t very comfortable there. We don’t like that dark area where we can’t understand or make sense of our circumstances. Logic tells us things shouldn’t be happening this way, so we find ourselves robbed of peace.

Oddly, we pursue logic in search of that elusive peace, but we won’t find it there. Consider our opening Scripture,

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”

Death, not peace, lies at the end of the road traveled by logic. In God’s economy, logic is our enemy, not our friend. The way that seems right to us is often the path that leads to destruction. How do we escape it? We need to allow God to renew our minds. Praise Jesus that through salvation, “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

Dear one, peace comes when we learn to release what we don’t understand and trust what we know of God. What do we know of Him?

  • He’s good. “may your saints rejoice in your goodness.” 2 Chronicles 6:41
  • He’s loving. “He is my loving God and my fortress.”  Psalm 144:2
  • He’s for us. “I know the plans I have for you . . . to prosper you.” Jeremiah 29:11

Here’s the best part.

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” — 1 Corinthians 2:9

If you can think it, you’re limiting what God wants to do for you.

Ask God to let that settle on you . . . Give it a moment to really sink in. The best plan that you could come up with for yourself—your best case scenario— is less than what God desires to do for you.

Beloved, if God gave you the desire of your heart in the way you think He should do it, He would be robbing you of a blessing.

Your God loves you too much to allow you to settle for less than. He wants to give you it all.

So the next time you find yourself stumbling in the darkness, try practicing gratitude. Know that the blackness you see is merely the result of your limited ability to understand, but there is something waiting for you just beyond the horizon. Something you can’t yet see. Something wonderful. Something perfect for you.

Don’t let logic rob you of your blessing. When His blessing for you finally does come, it will likely bring you to your knees, overcome with gratitude, because it has blown your mind. But of course it has. It was designed for you by the One who made you. He alone knows what you really need.