Listen

Tuesday, 13. May 2008 by Dan Ryan

Okay, this has officially reached a crisis of epidemic proportions.
In the past week, I have watched as 3 of the absolute nicest people I know—no exaggeration here, either—consistently struggled just to simply listen to someone else in conversation. And the frequency of these struggles got me thinking.
Are we overly obsessed with what we have to say? Do we not believe the other person has anything worthwhile to offer? What is the deal?
For the past month or so, I’ve been mulling how cell phones are intertwined—for good or bad—with our spirituality. Take my arch-nemesis, for example: text-messaging. While I may succumb to the occasional text, that doesn’t mean I can’t hate them. Like them or not, however, text messages have picked up irreversible momentum in the past year.

After all, they cater to our craving for convenience. And here’s the key: you don’t have to listen to the other person until you want to listen to them. Texting has become the latest breeding ground for the extinction of listening.
Lest you label me as some Scrooge when it comes to the 21st century, don’t dismiss this train of thought just yet. Cell phones aren’t evil; texting isn’t….evil (I concede that with the utmost reluctance).
Much like the first technology in the Bible—the bricks that built the tower of Babel—it’s not what we do with the bricks. It’s what the bricks do to us. Same thing with texting and cell phones: it’s not what we do with them, it’s what we let them do to us.
People have become crappy listeners. They are disinterested in listening to others. And I can’t help but wonder if this has seeped into our conversations with God. Yesterday, I decided to fight back.
I decided to live a true Sabbath day. I turned off my cell phone (other than one call to my mom—it was Mother’s Day and her birthday, so God deemed this exception wise). No radio. No TV. I took a nap. Basically, I enjoyed a Sunday of solitude.
And I tried to listen to God. At times, I felt as though I’d struck gold; other times, not so much. It was a start.

“For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Therefore consider carefully how you listen.”
—Luke 8:17-18

Curious. Consider carefully how you listen. Have you ever done that?

To Jesus, active listening was this mystical construct. In fact, He warned of would-be followers who would be plagued by the following riddle: “though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand….they hardly hear with their ears.”   
—Matthew 13:13, 15

Next to this passage, in the margins of my Bible, some years ago I scribbled, “I don’t want to be like that.” Jesus doesn’t want that, either. So throughout the gospels, He is continually reaching out to you and me with this cryptic plea:

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”—Luke 14:35

Curious. What is Jesus getting at? This is the 6th time Jesus says this, and in all but one of those cases, He has just finished spinning tales we call parables. Curious timing, wouldn’t you admit? Why wouldn’t Jesus throw this disclaimer at the beginning of the story, as opposed to saving it for the closing credits?
Maybe because, when it comes to listening to our God, the story doesn’t end when the words do.
Maybe God is not done speaking.
The next time you encounter someone whose behavior is annoying you, maybe that is His way of gently holding a mirror in front of you. When you go through difficult circumstances, maybe that’s His hand-written invitation to take your relationship to the next level. When you watch your next movie, the next time you are in the company of a great friend, when you drive to school/work, as you fade into sleep…
Listen.