The Good Listener - Pt 2

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:1-7 ESV). Isn’t it funny how easy it is to get a response from something we say or write? Yesterday I began a little series on listening. I was talking about it with some others before they were published, as I always write the devotionals a bit ahead of schedule. My, the response was more than I expected. Most of it was good, though I was cautioned that this topic would certainly be welcomed by most women and rejected by most men! I hope not. It is not gender based theology. And, truthfully, from my experience, both men and women could do better at listening! Well, that brings me to the second principle. Good listening is an act of love. “Half-eared listening,” says Bonheoffer, “despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person.” It’s true. Poor listening rejects, good listening embraces. Poor listening diminishes the other person, while good listening invites them into a relationship that is mutually desired and beneficial. It invites the other person to matter. Just as our love of God begins with listening to his Word, so the beginning of love for others begins with our learning to listen to them. The Apostle Paul must have had this in mind as he writes the correctional passage of 1 Corinthians 12-14, from which our reading is found. Love is at the heart of relationship. I suppose I am going to find my way to an audiologist this year. I have been vainly postponing that visit for quite some time. However, it is apparent that I simply can’t hear as well as I would like to be able to. And, my skills at lip reading are not sufficient. I noticed this more recently than before. I was sitting with my grandchildren, Faith and Logan, recently and they were trying to tell me something; but I really didn’t hear them. It was a sight to see their faces as I asked them to repeat themselves. They were looking at me as if I had two heads! But, I wanted to hear what they were saying. I wanted that simply because I love them. Sometimes our “convenient” hearing loss is really rooted in our lack of concentration in expressing love to one another. Love is intentions; it is active. To listen requires that kind of love.