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Listening=Loving

Relationships are stronger between people when they make the effort to listen to each other. At O'Hare airport recently, I observed two people who appeared to be a husband and wife. They looked to be in their late 50's or early 60's. She spoke with loud and angry words. He responded with louder and angrier words. Neither of them made eye contact with the other. He walked about three steps in front of her. They could both hear the angry words being spoken by the other (as could everyone else) but neither was stopping to think about what the other had just said. Their responses were fast and nasty. Their tone of voice, body language, and gestures made one thing perfectly clear - they were not listening to each other. They could both hear every syllable the other spoke but neither of them could actually hear a single word. It's hard to do any loving when you're not doing any listening.

The day after I witnessed this unhappy encounter, I came across the cure to their problem. It is the cure for all listening problems. I found it in Psalm 66:19,20. It says,

Psalm 66:19,20

"But certainly God has heard; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, Who has not turned away my prayer, nor His loving kindness from me."

God's love is expressed to us daily because He listens. When no one else has the time, patience or interest to hear everything on your heart and mind, God does. He is not rude or sick of hearing all the details. He invites you to "cast all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you." (1 Peter 5:7) As we, "take it to the Lord in prayer", Jesus is the friend who knows how to listen.

When we carefully listen to another person, we communicate that he or she has value and is important to us. Listening is an important way of showing love to each other. Marriages are strong and families are healthy when those in these close relationships make the effort to listen to each other. Listening can mean letting someone speak without interruption. It might mean empathizing and trying to understand what they are feeling. It always means taking time that could be used some other way. Listening sometimes means considering another person's point of view carefully enough that it may affect or change our own point of view.

To listen to someone is to love them. The energy and ability for the important work of listening, as with anything we hope and work to accomplish, comes from tapping into our source of every good gift. When we know Jesus is listening carefully to us we grow in our ability to listen to others. To paraphrase a familiar Bible verse about love we could accurately say that, "We listen because He first listened to us."

When your need to have someone listen is being met through Jesus, the ultimate listener, God will enable you to love someone by listening. To listen is to love.